GH-CODESPACE-SSH(1)

🦋 GH-CODESPACE-SSH(1) — the "ssh into your codespace" glow-up

okay so this is straight out of the GitHub CLI manual, bestie — the gh-codespace-ssh page, and it's genuinely iconic. let's get into it 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

gh-codespace-ssh — literally just SSH into a codespace. that's the whole vibe 🫶

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gh codespace ssh [<flags>...] [-- <ssh-flags>...] [<command>]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the ssh command is the one you use to SSH into a codespace. in its simplest form you just run gh cs ssh, pick a codespace interactively, and boom — you're connected. main character energy ✨

here's the cute part: the ssh command will automatically create a public/private ssh key pair in the ~/.ssh directory if you don't already have a valid key pair. it's like a lil gift from the CLI 🎀

when it's picking which key pair to use, the preferred order is:

1. key specified by -i in <ssh-flags>
2. the automatic key, if it already exists
3. the first valid key pair in ssh config (according to ssh -G)
4. the automatic key, newly created

the ssh command also supports deeper integration with OpenSSH using a --config option that generates per-codespace ssh configuration in OpenSSH format. and like… including this configuration in your ~/.ssh/config improves the user experience of tools that integrate with OpenSSH, such as:

• Bash/Zsh completion of ssh hostnames
• remote path completion for scp/rsync/sshfs
• git ssh remotes
• and so on 👑

once that's set up (peep the second example below 🌈), you can ssh to codespaces as if they were ordinary remote hosts — using ssh, not gh cs ssh. no cap.

⚠️ heads up bestie: the codespace you're connecting to must have an SSH server pre-installed. if the docker image being used for the codespace doesn't have an SSH server, install it in your Dockerfile or, for codespaces that use Debian-based images, you can add the following to your devcontainer.json:

"features": {
     "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/sshd:1": {
          "version": "latest"
     }
}

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -c, --codespace <string> — name of the codespace 🏷️
• --config — write OpenSSH configuration to stdout 📝
• -d, --debug — log debug data to a file 🐛
• --debug-file <string> — path of the file log to 📁
• --profile <string> — name of the SSH profile to use 🧚
• -R, --repo <string> — filter codespace selection by repository name (user/repo) 🔍
• --repo-owner <string> — filter codespace selection by repository owner (username or org) 👤
• --server-port <int> (default 0) — SSH server port number (0 => pick unused) 🔌

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🔥 EXIT CODES 🔥

• 0: successful execution — slay 💖
• 1: error 😭
• 2: command canceled 🙈
• 4: authentication required 🔐

📌 NOTE: specific commands may have additional exit codes. refer to the command's help for more information. iykyk.

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⭐ EXAMPLE ⭐

$ gh codespace ssh

$ gh codespace ssh --config > ~/.ssh/codespaces
$ printf 'Match all\nInclude ~/.ssh/codespaces\n' >> ~/.ssh/config

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• gh-codespace(1) — go read that one too bestie 🫶

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and that's the tea 🍓 — this page is from GitHub CLI v2.102.0, dated Oct 2026, so you know it's fresh. periodt. 💜