Connect to and run commands in your Pads.
pad sshOpen an interactive SSH session into a Pad.
pad ssh [alias]
pad ssh --new-token # force a fresh SSH token
pad ssh --ttl 24h # session lifetime (range 1m–24h, default 60m)
pad ssh --ttl 0 # mint a non-expiring token (must be revoked manually)Tokens are cached locally and rotated automatically. Use if you suspect your cached token is stale.
--new-tokenPass - as the alias to read it from stdin. This composes cleanly with pad up --json, so you can spin up a Pad and SSH into it in a single pipeline:
pad up --json | jq -r .alias | pad ssh -Stdin is treated as a single line (the rest is ignored), capped at 1 KiB. The same - form works for every Pad command that takes an alias: pad stop -, pad down -, pad start -, pad update -, pad ports ls -, and so on.
--ttl 0 mints a token with no expiration. Useful for long-running automation (agent orchestrators, multi-day CI runs) where rotation is awkward. There is no auto-revocation, so the token lives until the underlying Pad is destroyed or the row is removed from pad_ssh_tokens. Prefer a bounded --ttl whenever you have a moment to rotate.
Use --print to mint (or reuse) a token and print the SSH command instead of opening a session. Useful for piping into another tool, copying to a clipboard, or feeding the token to a coding-agent orchestrator or mobile SSH client.
pad ssh my-pad --print
# stdout: ssh <token>@ssh.pad.dev -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null
# stderr: Token expires at 2026-05-04T15:30:00Z (in 60m). Use --ttl to extend.
pad ssh my-pad --print --ttl 24h | pbcopy # copy a 24-hour command to the clipboardThe two -o flags in the printed command are required: the SSH gateway's host key isn't pinned, so without them the connection is blocked or pollutes your known_hosts.
Pair with the global --json flag to emit a structured object. --json skips the SSH session implicitly: there's nothing to capture if the command exec's into ssh.
pad ssh my-pad --json{
"token": "abc123...",
"host": "ssh.pad.dev",
"port": 22,
"username": "abc123...",
"ssh_command": "ssh abc123...@ssh.pad.dev -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null",
"ssh_uri": "ssh://abc123...@ssh.pad.dev:22",
"expires_at": "2026-05-04T15:30:00Z"
}Mobile clients (Termius, Blink, Prompt) can consume ssh_uri directly. Orchestrators that wire Pad in as a remote workspace typically read host, port, and username to populate their connection contract:
pad ssh "$PAD_ALIAS" --json --ttl 24h | jq '{host, port, username}'Run a command inside a Pad and stream stdout and stderr back to your terminal. Always use -- to separate the command from Pad CLI flags.
pad exec [alias] -- pnpm test
pad exec [alias] --cwd /workspaces/my-app -- pnpm build
pad exec [alias] --timeout 30 -- flaky-script
pad exec [alias] --background -- pnpm dev| Flag | Purpose |
|---|---|
--cwd <path> | Working directory inside the Pad. |
--timeout <seconds> | Kill the command after the timeout. |
--background | Start detached. Returns immediately with a PID. |
alias defaults to $PAD_ALIAS inside a Pad.