Handoff: Redis Infrastructure Investigation — Railway Dashboard Audit

From: Session 128.2 (Cursor Agent) To: Browser/Cowork Agent Priority: CRITICAL — All 4 production backends are running WITHOUT Redis (degraded state) Estimated Scope: 5 investigation tasks, ~15-20 minutes total Report back: YES — report all findings in structured format (see bottom)

Background (READ THIS FIRST)

All four production backends are logging Redis connection failures every 60 seconds:

WARN [RedisService] Redis connection failed (REDIS_URL): Connection is closed. — using in-memory fallback

What's broken:

• backend-api (api.gograb.space) — Redis failing
• backend-ai-api (ai-api.gograb.space) — Redis failing
• backend-docs-api (docs-api.gograb.space) — Redis failing
• backend-vitto-api (vitto-api.gograb.space) — uses VITTO_REDIS_URL, status unknown

Impact: Rate limiting is per-instance only, no distributed locks, no cross-instance Socket.IO pub/sub. Apps work via in-memory fallback but are running degraded.

Known history (Session 128): REDIS_PRIVATE_URL was found resolving to 127.0.0.1. A prior fix switched backends to use public REDIS_URL instead, but the problem persists.

Expected Redis database allocation:

Task 1: Verify Redis Service Exists and Is Running

Steps

1. Open Railway dashboard: https://railway.com/project/3990549d-4313-47e4-9682-d17b382bdba2
2. In the Architecture view, look for a Redis service
3. Check:
   • Is there a Redis service in the project at all?
   • What is its status? (Online / Offline / Deploying / Failed)
   • Click on the Redis service → go to Metrics tab → is it receiving any connections?
   • Go to Settings tab → note the internal hostname and port
   • Go to Connect tab (or Variables tab) → note the available connection URLs:
     • REDIS_URL — what value does Railway show?
     • REDIS_PRIVATE_URL — what value does Railway show?
     • Any other Redis-related variables

What to report

• Whether Redis service exists: YES / NO
• Redis service status: Online / Offline / Other
• The internal hostname shown (e.g., redis.railway.internal)
• The full REDIS_URL value (redact passwords with ***)
• The full REDIS_PRIVATE_URL value (redact passwords with ***)
• Memory usage / connections count if visible in Metrics

Task 2: Check REDIS_URL in backend-api Service

Steps

1. In Railway dashboard, click on the backend-api service (domain: api.gograb.space)
   • Service ID: 1ad0b79a-b722-4c69-920c-5dcb35978f0d
2. Go to Variables tab
3. Find the REDIS_URL variable
4. Check:
   • Does REDIS_URL exist?
   • What is its value? Is it a reference variable like ${{Redis.REDIS_URL}} or a hardcoded URL?
   • Does the URL include a database number suffix? (e.g., /1 at the end for db 1)
   • Is the URL format valid? Should be: redis://default:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT/DB
   • Does the resolved value (if reference variable) look correct?

What to report

• REDIS_URL exists: YES / NO
• Raw value (reference or hardcoded): ___
• Resolved value (redact password): ___
• Includes database number: YES (/1) / NO

Task 3: Check REDIS_URL in backend-ai-api and backend-docs-api Services

Steps

Repeat the same checks as Task 2 for:

1. backend-ai-api (domain: ai-api.gograb.space)

   • Service ID: fa00811a-db8e-4232-a23f-2becd96615c7
   • Expected: REDIS_URL with /2 database suffix

2. backend-docs-api (domain: docs-api.gograb.space)

   • Service ID: 0f7af191-d7a4-4366-82b6-312c4ab8fa7e
   • Expected: REDIS_URL with /3 database suffix

What to report (for each)

• REDIS_URL exists: YES / NO
• Raw value: ___
• Resolved value (redact password): ___
• Includes database number: YES / NO
• Are the values the same or different across services?

Task 4: Check VITTO_REDIS_URL in backend-vitto-api Service

Steps

1. Click on the backend-vitto-api service (domain: vitto-api.gograb.space)
   • Service ID: 072352ed-2e34-468e-bec9-03f6d299f867
2. Go to Variables tab
3. Find VITTO_REDIS_URL
4. Check same things as Task 2
   • Expected: database suffix /0

What to report

• VITTO_REDIS_URL exists: YES / NO
• Raw value: ___
• Resolved value (redact password): ___
• Includes database number: YES (/0) / NO

Task 5: Check Deploy Logs for Recent Redis Messages

Steps

For backend-api (the simplest to check):

1. Click on the backend-api service
2. Go to Deploy Logs tab
3. Look at the most recent log entries
4. Search/scroll for any of these messages:
   • Redis configured via REDIS_URL — new log we added (may not be deployed yet)
   • Redis connected — means Redis IS working
   • Redis connection failed — means Redis is NOT connecting
   • REDIS_URL not configured — means the env var is missing entirely
5. Note the exact error message if connection fails

What to report

• Most recent Redis-related log message (exact text)
• Timestamp of the log entry
• Whether any Redis connected messages appear at all (even old ones)

Railway Service Reference

Possible Fixes (DO NOT APPLY — Report First)

Based on what you find, one of these is likely the fix:

DO NOT apply fixes yet. Report your findings first so we can decide the correct fix together.

Report Format

Please report back with this structure:

## Redis Investigation Report

### Redis Service
- Exists: YES/NO
- Status: ___
- Internal URL: ___
- REDIS_URL value: ___
- REDIS_PRIVATE_URL value: ___

### backend-api (REDIS_URL)
- Variable exists: YES/NO
- Raw value: ___
- Resolved value: ___
- DB suffix: ___

### backend-ai-api (REDIS_URL)
- Variable exists: YES/NO
- Raw value: ___
- Resolved value: ___
- DB suffix: ___

### backend-docs-api (REDIS_URL)
- Variable exists: YES/NO
- Raw value: ___
- Resolved value: ___
- DB suffix: ___

### backend-vitto-api (VITTO_REDIS_URL)
- Variable exists: YES/NO
- Raw value: ___
- Resolved value: ___
- DB suffix: ___

### Deploy Logs
- Most recent Redis message: ___
- Timestamp: ___
- Any successful connections seen: YES/NO

### Recommended Fix
- (Your assessment based on findings)