Connection flags
The edgedb
CLI supports a standard set of connection flags used to specify
the target of a given command. The CLI always respects any connection
parameters passed explicitly using flags.
-
If no flags are provided, then environment variables will be used to determine the instance.
-
If no environment variables are present, the CLI will check if the working directory is within an instance-linked project directory.
-
If none of the above are present, the command fails.
For a detailed breakdown of how connection information is resolved, read the Connection Parameter Resolution docs.
Connection flags
- -I name, --instance=name
-
Specifies the named instance to connect to. The actual connection parameters for local and self-hosted instances are stored in
<edgedb_config_dir>/credentials
and are usually created by edgedb instance create or similar commands. Runedgedb info
to see the location of<edgedb_config_dir>
on your machine.EdgeDB Cloud instance names are in the format
<org-name>/<instance-name>
.This option overrides host and port.
- --dsn=dsn
-
Specifies the DSN for EdgeDB to connect to.
This option overrides all other options except password.
- --credentials-file /path/to/file
-
Path to JSON file containing credentials.
- -H hostname, --host=hostname
-
Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. Defaults to the value of the
EDGEDB_HOST
environment variable. - -P port, --port=port
-
Specifies the TCP port on which the server is listening for connections. Defaults to the value of the
EDGEDB_PORT
environment variable or, if not set, to5656
. - --unix-path /path/to/socket
-
Specifies a path to a Unix socket for an EdgeDB connection. If the path is a directory, the actual path will be computed using the
port
andadmin
parameters. - --admin
-
Connect to a password-less Unix socket (specified by the
unix-path
) with superuser privileges by default. - -u username, --user=username
-
Connect to the database as the user username. Defaults to the value of the
EDGEDB_USER
environment variable, or, if not set,edgedb
. - -d dbname, --database=dbname
-
Specifies the name of the database to connect to. Defaults to the value of the
EDGEDB_DATABASE
environment variable. If that variable isn’t set, local instances will default toedgedb
while remote instances will default to the name provided when the link was created. This also includes EdgeDB Cloud instance links created via edgedb project init.With EdgeDB 5, databases were refactored as branches. If you’re using EdgeDB 5+, use the option below instead of this one.
- -b branch_name, --branch=branch_name
-
Specifies the name of the branch to connect to. Defaults to the value of the
EDGEDB_BRANCH
environment variable. If that variable isn’t set, local instances will default to the most recently switched branch or themain
branch, while remote instances will default to the name provided when the link was created. This also includes EdgeDB Cloud instance links created via edgedb project init. - --password | --no-password
-
If --password is specified, force
edgedb
to prompt for a password before connecting to the database. This is usually not necessary, sinceedgedb
will prompt for a password automatically if the server requires it.Specifying --no-password disables all password prompts.
- --password-from-stdin
-
Use the first line of standard input as the password.
- --tls-ca-file /path/to/cert
-
Certificate to match server against.
This might either be full self-signed server certificate or certificate authority (CA) certificate that server certificate is signed with.
- --tls-security mode
-
Set the TLS security mode.
default
-
Resolves to
strict
if no custom certificate is supplied via --tls-ca-file, environment variable, etc. Otherwise, resolves tono_host_verification
. strict
-
Verify TLS certificate and hostname.
no_host_verification
-
This allows using any certificate for any hostname. However, certificate must be present and match the root certificate specified with --tls-ca-file, credentials file, or system root certificates.
insecure
-
Disable all TLS security measures.
- --secret-key key
-
Specifies the secret key to use for authentication with EdgeDB Cloud instances. This is not required when connecting to your own EdgeDB Cloud instance if you have logged in with edgedb cloud login.
- --wait-until-available=wait_time
-
In case EdgeDB connection can’t be established, keep retrying up to wait_time (e.g.
30s
). The timeout value must be given using time units (e.g.hr
,min
,sec
,ms
, etc.). - --connect-timeout=timeout
-
Specifies a timeout period. In the event EdgeDB doesn’t respond in this period, the command will fail (or retry if --wait-until-available is also specified). The timeout value must be given using time units (e.g.
hr
,min
,sec
,ms
, etc.). The default value is10s
.