central-station

Central Station

Search and browse Railway's Central Station - the community support platform for threads, discussions, and documentation.

API Endpoints

When to Use

• User wants to search Central Station threads or docs
• User asks about community discussions or support questions
• User wants to find threads about a specific topic (deployments, databases, etc.)
• User asks "what are people asking about X"
• User wants to see recent threads or questions
• User mentions Central Station, community threads, or support discussions
• User wants to find existing solutions before creating a new thread

When NOT to Use

• User wants Railway product documentation - use railway-docs skill
• User wants to check their project status - use status skill
• User wants to manage their Railway project - use appropriate skill (deploy, environment, etc.)

Docs Search

For official Railway documentation, use the railway-docs skill which fetches from https://docs.railway.com/api/llms-docs.md.

Central Station's unifiedSearch can identify document types but has limited field access:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{"query":"{ unifiedSearch(input: { query: \"volumes\", limit: 10 }) { results { document { __typename } } } }"}'

Document types returned: EsThreadItem (threads) and DocSearchResult (docs).

Note: For searching thread content, use the LLM Data Export endpoint instead (see below) which provides full thread data.

Quick Actions

Get Recent Threads

Fetch recent threads, optionally filtered by topic:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "{ threads(first: 10, sort: recent_activity) { edges { node { slug subject status topic { slug displayName } upvoteCount createdAt } } } }"}'

With topic filter:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "{ threads(first: 10, sort: recent_activity, topic: \"questions\") { edges { node { slug subject status topic { displayName } upvoteCount } } } }"}'

Get Thread by Slug

Fetch a specific thread with its content:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "{ thread(slug: \"THREAD_SLUG\") { slug subject status content { data } topic { displayName } upvoteCount } }"}'

Get Thread as Markdown

For a cleaner read, fetch the thread as markdown:

# Append .md to the frontend URL (requires topic slug)
curl -s 'https://station.railway.com/TOPIC_SLUG/THREAD_SLUG.md'

# Or use API with format query parameter
curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/api/threads/THREAD_SLUG?format=md'

# Or use API with Accept header
curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/api/threads/THREAD_SLUG' \
  -H 'Accept: text/markdown'

List Topics

Get all available topics:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "{ topics { slug displayName displayNamePlural } }"}'

Returns: questions, feedback, community, billing, bug-bounty, privacy, abuse, templates

Get Trending Threads

Fetch currently trending threads:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "{ trendingThreads { slug subject status topic { displayName } upvoteCount } }"}'

Get Pinned Threads

Fetch pinned/important threads:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query": "{ pinnedThreads { slug subject topic { displayName } } }"}'

Search via LLM Data Export

For searching thread content, fetch all threads and filter locally:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/api/llms-station' | jq '.items[] | select(.title | test("postgres"; "i")) | {title, topic: .topic.name, status: .metadata.status}'

This endpoint returns all public threads with full content, useful for searching by keywords.

Thread Statuses

Sort Options

For the threads query, use the sort parameter:

Presenting Results

When showing threads:

1. Thread title - The subject
2. Topic - Category (questions, feedback, etc.)
3. Status - Open, solved, awaiting response
4. Summary - Brief preview from content
5. Link - https://station.railway.com/{topic_slug}/{thread_slug}

Format example:

Found 3 threads about "postgres":

1. "Connection timeout when connecting to Postgres"
   Topic: questions | Status: SOLVED | Upvotes: 5
   https://station.railway.com/questions/connection-timeout-postgres

2. "How to connect to Postgres from local development"
   Topic: community | Status: OPEN | Upvotes: 12
   https://station.railway.com/community/connect-postgres-local

3. "Postgres SSL certificate verification failed"
   Topic: questions | Status: AWAITING_RAILWAY_RESPONSE
   https://station.railway.com/questions/postgres-ssl-verification

Common Search Patterns

Composability

• After finding a thread: Summarize the solution or link to it
• No results found: Suggest using railway-docs skill or creating a new thread
• Technical issue found: Use relevant skill (deploy, environment, etc.) to help fix it

Error Handling

No Results Found

No threads found. Try:
- Different topic filter
- Checking Railway docs instead
- Creating a new thread at https://station.railway.com

Invalid Topic

List available topics first:

curl -s 'https://station-server.railway.com/gql' -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"query": "{ topics { slug } }"}'

Thread Not Found

Thread not found. It may have been deleted or marked private.