Connection flags

The gel 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 <gel_config_dir>/credentials and are usually created by gel instance create or similar commands. Run gel info to see the location of <gel_config_dir> on your machine.

Gel Cloud instance names are in the format <org-name>/<instance-name>.

This option overrides host and port.

--dsn=dsn

Specifies the DSN for Gel 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 GEL_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 GEL_PORT environment variable or, if not set, to 5656.

--unix-path /path/to/socket

Specifies a path to a Unix socket for a Gel connection. If the path is a directory, the actual path will be computed using the port and admin 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 GEL_USER environment variable, or, if not set, admin.

-b branch_name, --branch=branch_name

Specifies the name of the branch to connect to. Defaults to the value of the GEL_BRANCH environment variable. If that variable isn't set, local instances will default to the most recently switched branch or the main branch, while remote instances will default to the name provided when the link was created. This also includes Gel Cloud instance links created via gel project init.

Prior to EdgeDB 5, branches were called databases.

The name of the database could be specified using either:

flags -d <dbname>, --database=<dbname>,
or the GEL_DATABASE environment variable.

Gel supports those options for backwards compatibility.

--password | --no-password

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

--secret-key key

Specifies the secret key to use for authentication with Gel Cloud instances. This is not required when connecting to your own Gel Cloud instance if you have logged in with gel cloud login.

--wait-until-available=wait_time

In case Gel 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 Gel 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 is 10s.

Connection flags​