How I Deployed My AI Fashion Bot on Railway

Last week, I had this crazy idea to build my own fashion assistant. I’ve always loved trendy things, but at the same time, I want to be mindful about what I buy, whether something is appropriate for an event or if it actually suits me. You get the idea: basically, a personal assistant for all my styling deci.

Since I had a lot of free time over the weekend, I decided to lock in and get started. Over just a couple of days, I built Cultura, an AI-powered fashion and lifestyle Telegram bot. I used the free-tier Gemini models and tuned the prompts to match my use case.

Cultura helps users with everything from skincare routines and outfit suggestions to travel fashion tips, all tailored to their location, style preferences, and budget. The bot was running perfectly on my laptop, but here’s the catch: I wanted an assistant that would be available 24/7, and I wasn’t about to keep my laptop on all the time.

So… off to deployment we go.

Finding the Right Hosting Platform

After exploring my options, I first came across Render Workers. They were incredibly easy to deploy and efficient, but when I clicked on the “Background Worker” option, I realized it was paid. And since this was just a hobby project, I didn’t want to spend money right away.

That’s when I discovered Railway. They offer a free one-month trial, perfect for testing out my bot. It’s clean, developer-friendly, and great for apps that need to run continuously.

Why I Chose Railway

Quick setup – connect your GitHub repo and deploy in minutes
Perfect for background apps – Telegram bots need to run all the time
Generous free trial – no upfront costs for experimenting
Easy environment variable management – no more hardcoding secrets

First Deployment on Railway

1. Push Your Project to GitHub

Keep sensitive credentials (like API keys and bot tokens) in a .env file locally.
Add .env to .gitignore so it isn’t uploaded to GitHub.

2. Create a Railway Project

Go to Railway and sign up.
Click New Project → Deploy from GitHub Repo and select your bot’s repository.

3. Add Environment Variables

In your project dashboard, you’ll see Deployments, Variables, Metrics, Settings.
Click Variables.
Add each variable Name (e.g., TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN, GEMINI_API_KEY) and its matching Value.

4. Set the Start Command

Go to Settings in the left menu.
Scroll down to Start Command and set:
```
  python telegram_bot.py
```
This ensures Railway installs dependencies before starting the bot.

5. Deploy

Railway will automatically build and run your bot.
Check the logs to make sure everything’s running smoothly.

Updating Cultura on Railway

When you make changes:

Push the updated code to GitHub, and Railway will rebuild automatically.
If you change any environment variables, update them in the Variables tab.
If your entry point changes, update the Start Command in Settings.

Final Thoughts

Railway made it possible to take a weekend project from my laptop and turn it into a 24/7 live bot, without wrestling with complex cloud setups. For small bots, prototypes, or hobby projects, it’s one of the fastest and smoothest ways to get running in the cloud.

Checkout Cultura here ! ❤️

🚀 How I Deployed My Fashion & Lifestyle Bot “Cultura” Using Railway

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