SSH and connect

Once a rig is running, you have a few ways to get inside it:

SSH (works on hosted rigs) — for interactive shells, one-off commands, or for handing the destination to your own SSH client.
rig connect (CLI-only, local rigs) — drops you into the Docker container’s shell directly.
rig code (CLI-only) — opens the rig in Cursor over SSH.

Prerequisites

A rig in the active / running / started state. See Create a rig.

Open an interactive SSH session

amika rig ssh dev-box

// The SDK doesn't shell out — it returns SSH connection info you
// hand to your own SSH client.
const ssh = await amika.getSSH("dev-box");
console.log(ssh.sshDestination); // e.g. "user@host:2222"
console.log(ssh.token);          // bearer for the proxy
console.log(ssh.expiresAt);      // ISO timestamp
console.log(ssh.repoName);       // repo subdir inside the rig

Run a one-off command

The CLI passes anything after -- straight to the remote shell. Use -t to allocate a TTY when the remote command needs one.

# Non-interactive command
amika rig ssh dev-box -- ls -la

# Interactive program (force TTY)
amika rig ssh -t dev-box -- top

Copy files

Use amika scp to copy files between your machine and a rig. It uses the same SSH identity as amika rig ssh and accepts standard scp options such as -r, -p, and -C.

# Upload a file into the rig user's home directory
amika scp ./local.txt dev-box:local.txt

# Download a directory
amika scp -r dev-box:/srv/output ./output

A relative rig path starts under /home/amika. Use an absolute path when the file lives elsewhere in the rig.

Local-Docker shell (CLI only)

amika rig connect opens the Docker container’s shell directly. It only applies to local rigs (--local).

amika rig connect dev-box                # default zsh
amika rig connect dev-box --shell bash

Open in an editor (CLI only)

amika rig code opens the rig in Cursor, VS Code, Claude Desktop, or Codex over SSH. See Open a rig in your editor for the full command and instructions for other Remote-SSH editors.

amika rig code dev-box

Revoke an SSH token

The SSH credential issued by ssh/getSSH is time-bounded. You can revoke it on demand.

amika rig ssh dev-box --revoke

await amika.revokeSSH("dev-box", ssh.token);

Get started

VM Rigs

Agents and sessions

Configuration

Connecting to rigs

Code validation

Guides for agents

Advanced

SSH and connect

Prerequisites

Open an interactive SSH session

Run a one-off command

Copy files

Local-Docker shell (CLI only)

Open in an editor (CLI only)

Revoke an SSH token

Next steps

Programmatic walkthrough

Rig lifecycle

CLI reference

​Prerequisites

​Open an interactive SSH session

​Run a one-off command

​Copy files

​Local-Docker shell (CLI only)

​Open in an editor (CLI only)

​Revoke an SSH token

​Next steps

Programmatic walkthrough

Rig lifecycle

CLI reference

Prerequisites

Open an interactive SSH session

Run a one-off command

Copy files

Local-Docker shell (CLI only)

Open in an editor (CLI only)

Revoke an SSH token

Next steps