Hosting a relay

On your machine

cd server
docker compose up -d

Players on the same network connect to ws://your-ip:8890.

Online, with Google Cloud Run

Cloud Run gives you an HTTPS address for free, which is what browser games need.

MELAY_GCP_PROJECT=my-project scripts/deploy-cloudrun.sh

It prints your relay address when it finishes. Set that as Url in Project Settings > Melay, and set Mode to Remote.

MELAY_GCP_REGION defaults to us-east1 if you want somewhere else.

Anywhere else

The relay is one small Docker image:

docker run -d -p 8890:8890 -v melay-data:/data ghcr.io/bearlikelion/melay:latest

Put it behind Caddy or nginx if you want HTTPS on your own domain.

Browser games need wss://

A game running in a browser on an HTTPS page can only connect to a wss:// address, never ws://. If you plan to ship to the web, your relay needs HTTPS. Cloud Run handles this for you. A plain IP address cannot.

Settings

Set these as environment variables. All are optional.

Variable	Default	What it does
MELAY_ADDR	:8890	Port to listen on
MELAY_DATABASE_URL	file:/data/melay.db	Where analytics go, or none to turn them off
MELAY_MAX_ROOMS	50	Room limit per game
MELAY_MAX_PLAYERS_PER_ROOM	8	Players per room
MELAY_WEB_DIR	unset	Folder holding a web export, served at /play

Many games, one relay

Games are kept apart by their game name, so you can point everything you make at the same relay. To set limits or require a password per game, create melay.yaml:

games:
  spacewar:
    max_players_per_room: 16
    api_key: "${SPACEWAR_KEY}"

Games with an api_key must send it. Everything else connects freely.

Checking it works

curl https://your-relay/api/v1/health

The dashboard at / shows players, rooms and playtime for every game.