diff --git a/apps/api/src/app/health/health.controller.ts b/apps/api/src/app/health/health.controller.ts
index 5542ae933..a76a36656 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/app/health/health.controller.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/app/health/health.controller.ts
@@ -23,6 +23,12 @@ import { HealthService } from './health.service';
 export class HealthController {
   public constructor(private readonly healthService: HealthService) {}
 
+  /** Liveness: returns 200 as soon as the server is listening (for Railway etc.) */
+  @Get('live')
+  public getLive(@Res() response: Response) {
+    return response.status(HttpStatus.OK).json({ status: 'OK' });
+  }
+
   @Get()
   public async getHealth(@Res() response: Response) {
     const databaseServiceHealthy = await this.healthService.isDatabaseHealthy();
diff --git a/railway.toml b/railway.toml
index 9f38ae6df..fe501cbee 100644
--- a/railway.toml
+++ b/railway.toml
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ builder = "DOCKERFILE"
 dockerfilePath = "Dockerfile"
 
 [deploy]
-# Healthcheck disabled so deploy can succeed; fix DB/Redis env if app doesn't respond
+healthcheckPath = "/api/v1/health/live"
+healthcheckTimeout = 300
 restartPolicyType = "ON_FAILURE"
 restartPolicyMaxRetries = 10