Problem Summary

My Railway service is configured to run a Node.js Express API but is serving static files instead of executing my API routes. This is breaking my Facebook OAuth callback and all API endpoints.

Expected Behavior

• Service should run my Node.js Express server
• API routes like /api/auth/facebook/callback should execute server-side code
• Should return JSON responses from my Express routes

Actual Behavior

• API routes return HTML (React app's index.html) instead of executing Node.js code
• Browser requests static assets after every API call
• Network logs show Content-Type: text/html and Content-Disposition: inline; filename="index.html"
• Call stack shows static file requests originating from API endpoints

Service Configuration

Build Command:cd backend && npm installStart Command:cd backend && node server.jsWatch Paths:

backend/**
!frontend/**
package.json

Evidence

1. Server logs show Node.js starting correctly:

INFO Accepting connections at http://localhost:3001  

1. But API calls trigger static file serving:

GET /api/auth/facebook/callback → Returns 200 but serves index.html  
Followed by:  
GET /static/js/main.379b7289.js  
GET /static/css/main.94535c51.css  

1. Network inspector shows:
   • Status: 200 OK
   • Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
   • Content-Disposition: inline; filename="index.html"

Repository Structure

project-root/
├── frontend/     (React app)
├── backend/      (Node.js Express API)
└── package.json

What I've Tried

• Set correct build/start commands
• Added watch paths to isolate backend
• Verified server starts successfully
• Railway still treats service as static site

Question

How can I force Railway to recognize this as a Node.js API service instead of a static site? It seems like Railway has "learned" to serve static files and won't switch back to running the Node.js server, even with correct configuration.

Service Name: whydiditdie-app-clean Service Type: Should be Node.js API, but behaving like static site