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

2. 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

3. 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