Image Auto Updates

When you deploy a service using a Docker image, Railway can automatically check for new versions and update your service during configurable maintenance windows. With this, you can keep your services up to date without manual intervention.

Supported Registries

Image auto updates are only available for images hosted on the following registries:

• Docker Hub (docker.io or no domain prefix)
• GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io)

Images from other registries (ECR, GCR, ACR, private registries, etc.) do not support auto updates.

How It Works

Railway periodically checks the Docker registry for new versions of your configured image. When an update is available and your maintenance window is active, Railway will:

1. Create a backup of any attached volumes
2. Update the image in your service configuration to the :latest tag
3. Redeploy your service with the new image
4. Notify workspace admins of the update

Configure Auto Updates

To enable automatic image updates:

1. Navigate to your service's Settings page
2. Under the Source section, select Configure Auto Updates
3. Choose your preferred update type
4. Choose a maintenance window

Maintenance Windows

Maintenance windows define when Railway is allowed to apply automatic updates. All schedules are evaluated in UTC.

Window	Schedule
Weekends	Saturday and Sunday, all day
Night	02:00 - 06:00 UTC daily
Anytime	Updates are applied immediately after detection
Custom	User-defined day and hour ranges

Note that updates are applied after Railway detects new versions, not the moment they're published. To avoid overwhelming registries, detection results are cached for up to a few hours.

Custom Schedules

Custom maintenance windows let you define days and hour ranges for updates. You can configure multiple windows to match your operational requirements.

Safety Features

Railway includes several safety mechanisms to protect your services during automatic updates:

Volume Backups

For Pro plan users, Railway automatically creates a backup of all volumes attached to the service before applying any update. These backups are named Auto Update {image} and can be used to restore data if needed.

Skip Versions

If a specific version causes issues, you can skip it to prevent Railway from automatically updating to that version. Skipped versions will be excluded from future auto-update checks.

When prompted select the dropdown and click "Skip this version"

Notifications

When an automatic update is applied, workspace admins receive a notification containing:

• Service and environment name
• Previous version
• New version
• Update type

To disable these notifications, create a custom rule setting "ServiceInstance Auto Updated" to "None" for a project.