SFTP connection strings

Connect accepts SFTP endpoints in URI form. Combine these patterns with any CLI command (copy, move, sync, list, remove, etc.).

Base host

• sftp://10.0.0.1 — Connect uses the current OS user for login.
• sftp://10.0.0.1:2222 — specify a custom SSH port.

User and password

• sftp://user1@10.0.0.1 — explicit username, password prompted or provided separately.
• sftp://user1:Sup3rSecret@10.0.0.1 — inline password (wrap the URI in quotes to protect shell history and special characters).

Tip: avoid embedding passwords when possible. Use endpoint aliases (connect alias add) to store credentials securely.

Password encoding

• URL-encode characters that are meaningful in URIs (@ → %40, : → %3A, space → %20).
  Example: sftp://user:pa%40ss%3Aword@host/~/data.
• When a password is present in the URI (or alias), Connect skips interactive password/passphrase prompts and uses the supplied secret directly.

SSH keys

• sftp://user1@10.0.0.1 with --key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 — both source and destination use the same private key.
• sftp://user1@10.0.0.1 with --src-key ~/.ssh/src_key --dst-key ~/.ssh/dst_key — distinct keys for each side of a transfer.

Aliases can also hold key paths and passphrases. For example, an alias saved with connect alias add injects key material automatically when you reference @prod-sftp/... in commands.

Target folders

• sftp://user1@10.0.0.1/incoming/ — relative to the user’s home directory (e.g. /home/user1/incoming).
• sftp://user1@10.0.0.1//var/logs/ — leading double slash forces an absolute path on the remote host (/var/logs).
• sftp://user1@10.0.0.1/../archive/ — relative traversal allowed when the server supports it.
• sftp://host/~/Reports/ — tilde paths are expanded to the remote user’s home directory; /~/ points to the home root.
• Wildcards (*.csv) and regex (regex:^report_.*\\.zip$) operate server-side so you can target multiple files in one command.

Putting it together

$ connect copy --key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 \
    report.csv \
    sftp://user1@10.0.0.1/var/finance/

This command copies report.csv using key-based authentication and writes it to /var/finance/ on the remote host.

Behind the scenes

• Authentication order follows SSH best practices: agent → discovered keys (~/.ssh/id_*) → password → keyboard-interactive.
• Host keys are stored in ~/.connect/known_hosts; the CLI prompts the first time it encounters an unknown host and validates subsequent connections.