Hey Railway team 👋, I really like the idea of templates — they’re exactly what I need to help me spin up projects faster. However, for the category "Starters", the current “eject template” flow feels unintuitive, especially when using templates as **starter projects**. I think this is one of the most valuable use cases outside of deploying databases and 1-click installs like WordPress. Sometimes I want something "quick", which is exactly what a starter template provides. I am specifically talking about: A few points of friction I’ve noticed: * **Unclear code origin**: When deploying from a template, it’s unclear what code I’m deploying. There’s no prominent link to the original repository before deploying; only after I deployed and opened the project. * **Ejecting feels hidden**: The “eject template” button is buried in a weird spot and doesn’t feel like a natural part of the flow. It confused me so much while trying to make some templates that I included it in the description of my starter templates. * **Ejecting should be the default**: Starter templates are meant to be ejected into your own codebase to iterate more quickly. I don't think there is a starter template that one would deploy and no longer touch. ### Suggestions: * Please make the **origin repo** link more visible before and right after template deployment so that I can inspect the source immediately. * Treat **ejecting as the default** for starter templates. Maybe just a prompt: “Do you want to fork this to your own repo?”. Ideally, while also creating a new repository. This would make templates much more usable as **real starting points**, not just demo deployments. So far, I’m enjoying Railway a lot—thanks for listening, and keep up the great work. I can totally see Railway becoming a much bigger player if it leans into being a "get it done" marketplace, especially compared to how slow and bloated bigger platforms like GCP, AWS and Azure feel. No promises tho, but I can feel something is brewing here...

Make starter templates easier for me to own the code

a year ago

Hey Railway team 👋,

I really like the idea of templates — they’re exactly what I need to help me spin up projects faster. However, for the category "Starters", the current “eject template” flow feels unintuitive, especially when using templates as starter projects. I think this is one of the most valuable use cases outside of deploying databases and 1-click installs like WordPress. Sometimes I want something "quick", which is exactly what a starter template provides.

I am specifically talking about:

https://railway.com/deploy?category=Starters

A few points of friction I’ve noticed:

Unclear code origin: When deploying from a template, it’s unclear what code I’m deploying. There’s no prominent link to the original repository before deploying; only after I deployed and opened the project.
Ejecting feels hidden: The “eject template” button is buried in a weird spot and doesn’t feel like a natural part of the flow. It confused me so much while trying to make some templates that I included it in the description of my starter templates.
Ejecting should be the default: Starter templates are meant to be ejected into your own codebase to iterate more quickly. I don't think there is a starter template that one would deploy and no longer touch.

Suggestions:

Please make the origin repo link more visible before and right after template deployment so that I can inspect the source immediately.
Treat ejecting as the default for starter templates. Maybe just a prompt: “Do you want to fork this to your own repo?”. Ideally, while also creating a new repository.

This would make templates much more usable as real starting points, not just demo deployments.

So far, I’m enjoying Railway a lot—thanks for listening, and keep up the great work. I can totally see Railway becoming a much bigger player if it leans into being a "get it done" marketplace, especially compared to how slow and bloated bigger platforms like GCP, AWS and Azure feel.

No promises tho, but I can feel something is brewing here...

Under Review

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2 Replies

samgordon

PRO

a year ago

Ejecting should be the default

I personally think that the goal of a template is to be deployable, without touching it. All of my templates are meant to function like that.

Ideally, while also creating a new GitHub repository

Many, many templates aren't based off of GitHub at all. I would definitely not want this behavior.

samgordon

> **Ejecting should be the default** I personally think that the goal of a template is to be deployable, without touching it. All of my templates are meant to function like that. > Ideally, while also creating a new GitHub repository Many, many templates aren't based off of GitHub at all. I would definitely not want this behavior.

polluxs

PROOP

a year ago

I'm not saying all templates, but specific the category "Starter templates", maybe I need to make that more clear in my description.

For example: https://railway.com/deploy/node-js

Or check: https://railway.com/deploy?category=Starters

I can get that Github is too specific.

But I do want to have the link to whatever is going to be deploying if it's a starter template.

The purpose of most starter templates is to get something to build upon.

EDIT: I've updated the description by removing Github repo specific, and I've clarified that I'm talking about the category starters.

Welcome!