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 are stored in <edgedb_config_dir>/credentials and are usually created by edgedb instance create or similar commands. Run edgedb info to see the location of <edgedb_config_dir> on your machine.

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, to 5656.

-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, to the login name of the current OS user.

-d dbname, —database=dbname

Specifies the name of the database to connect to. Default to the value of the EDGEDB_DATABASE environment variable, or, if not set, to the calculated value of username.

--password | —no-password

If —password is specified, force edgedb to prompt for a password before connecting to the database. This is usually not necessary, since edgedb 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 to no_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.

--wait-until-available=wait_time

In case EdgeDB connection can’t be established, keep retrying up to wait_time (e.g. 30s).

--connect-timeout=timeout

Specifies a timeout period. In case EdgeDB doesn’t respond for 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 is 10s.