Understand self-hosting

LobbyStack can run on one Docker host or as separate managed services. Self-hosting gives you control over application data, credentials, provider usage, backups, and upgrades.

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Deploy on Railway

The LobbyStack Railway template deploys the admin, worker, and migration services with PostgreSQL, Redis, and a storage bucket. Railway generates every secret and database password. You enter an OpenAI API key and your Twilio credentials, then create your account on the admin domain and finish the steps in After deploying.

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After deploying

Browser test calls work as soon as the deploy finishes. Email, phone calls, website import, and Google Calendar need more setup, and the phone and calendar steps use the admin domain that Railway assigns. Set each variable on the service named below, then deploy the staged changes in Railway.

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Set up email

Password resets, verification codes, team invites, and operator alerts fail until the worker can send email. On the worker service, set:

• SMTP_HOST, SMTP_USERNAME, and SMTP_PASSWORD from your email provider
• SMTP_PORT, which defaults to 587, and SMTP_SECURE, which defaults to false. Use 465 and true if your provider needs TLS from the start.
• EMAIL_FROM, an address your provider lets you send from, such as LobbyStack <no-reply@example.com>
• EMAIL_REPLY_TO, if replies should go to another address

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Finish phone calls

Browser calls work without these steps. Phone calls need an OpenAI project with SIP enabled and a Twilio Elastic SIP trunk:

1. In the OpenAI dashboard, add a webhook for live.transport.incoming that points to https://your_admin_domain/api/webhooks/openai/live.
2. Set the webhook’s signing secret as OPENAI_WEBHOOK_SECRET on the admin service.
3. In Twilio, create an Elastic SIP trunk with the origination URI sip:your_openai_project_id@sip.api.openai.com;transport=tls.
4. Set the trunk’s SID as TWILIO_SIP_TRUNK_SID on the worker service. The worker can’t provision a phone number without it.

The voice runtime guide covers the trunk’s transfer settings and moving existing numbers.

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Import websites (optional)

Set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY on the worker service. Without it, website import fails.

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Connect Google Calendar (optional)

In Google Cloud, enable the Google Calendar API and create an OAuth client for a web application. Add https://your_admin_domain/api/calendar/google/callback as an authorized redirect URI. Set GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET on the admin service. The template fills in GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI, and the worker reads all three from the admin. With both values set, the sign-in and sign-up pages also offer Continue with Google. Add https://your_admin_domain/api/auth/callback/google to the same OAuth client as a second authorized redirect URI.

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Use a custom domain

Add the domain to the admin service, then set APP_BASE_URL on the admin service to https://your_domain. These variables reference it and follow the change:

• SITE_URL, AUTH_TRUSTED_ORIGINS, TWILIO_SMS_WEBHOOK_URL, TWILIO_STATUS_CALLBACK_URL, and GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI on the admin service
• APP_BASE_URL, TWILIO_STATUS_CALLBACK_URL, and GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI on the worker service

A deployment from an older version of the template has the Railway domain written into each of these variables, so edit them all. Then point the OpenAI webhook and both Google redirect URIs at the new domain. Phone numbers you provisioned before the change keep their old SMS and status callback URLs in Twilio until you update them there.

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Official baseline

The repository’s docker-compose.yml runs:

• PostgreSQL with pgvector for durable data, authentication state, and knowledge embeddings
• Redis for queues, rate limits, and realtime coordination
• a persistent Docker volume for recordings and uploaded documents
• the Next.js admin dashboard and HTTP API
• the background worker and transactional outbox dispatcher, which also runs each GPT-Live call
• Caddy to route the dashboard hostname over plain HTTP, behind the proxy or load balancer that terminates HTTPS

LobbyStack does not add monitoring containers to the Compose stack. Server runtimes can send traces, metrics, and OpenTelemetry logs to a configured OTLP-compatible backend.

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Data flow

1. The dashboard and API read and write PostgreSQL through role-specific connections and row-level security.
2. Durable side effects enter the PostgreSQL outbox in the same transaction as business state changes.
3. The worker dispatches queued jobs and refreshes business context snapshots.
4. OpenAI hosts call audio. The admin starts each call with the business snapshot, and the worker answers GPT-Live’s requests for bookings, messages, and transfers.
5. The admin and worker share the configured storage provider. Single-host Compose deployments use a persistent local volume by default.

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Responsibilities

You are responsible for:

• PostgreSQL, Redis, and file-storage durability
• backups, restore drills, upgrades, and monitoring
• public DNS and TLS for the dashboard
• Twilio, OpenAI, email, calendar, billing, and analytics credentials
• secret rotation and least-privilege database roles

Continue with the Docker Compose deployment guide, environment variables, and provider reference.