Snippets and the palette

The command palette

Open Run a Command from a terminal:

• iPhoneiPad the ⌘ button in the bar (in the ⋯ menu when the bar has no room), or the ⌘ key on the key bar's fn page;
• MaciPad ⇧⌘P, or the ⌘ button at the top.

It has two sections: History (this host's commands first, most used first, then other hosts') and Presets and snippets. Search presets and history matches a name, a command or a category. New Snippet (the plus) and the History menu are at the top, or on a Mac in the row at the bottom beside Done.

What happens when you choose one

• A command is typed at the prompt with Return. In a shell that reads pasted text safely, it waits at the prompt for your Return.
• A snippet with a variable opens a sheet first: What it needs, then What will be sent to the host, with Run.
• A preset that changes something, and any imported snippet, asks Run this on the host first.
• A group snippet opens Run on a Group.

Built-in presets

Conn comes with 59 presets in nine categories: systemd, Logs, Disk, Network, Processes, Packages, git, Files and tmux. Those that change something always ask first.

When a terminal opens, Conn asks the host which tools it has, and hides presets for tools it lacks. A line at the foot of the palette says so: Show All Presets shows them anyway, and Only host's Tools hides them again.

Built-in presets can't be changed. Touch and hold (or right click) one for View Preset, Duplicate (to make your own copy you can edit) and Run on a Group...

Making a snippet

Choose New Snippet in the palette to write one. Save as Preset, on a command in History, saves it at once, named after the command, in the category "From history"; change it later with Edit Snippet... A snippet has:

Field	What it's for
Name	How you find it in the palette, such as "Pull the latest code".
Command	What it runs, such as git -C {{folder}} pull. It can be several lines.
Variables	A starting value for each variable, if you want one.
Where It Runs	In the terminal: typed into the session you run it from. On a group: run on each host in a group.
Ask Before Running	Always asks before it sends anything.
Category	Shown under its name in the palette, and found by search, such as "Git".
Needs the Tool	A tool it needs, such as git, so it's hidden on hosts without it.
Notes	What it does, in one line.

Your own snippets have Edit Snippet..., Duplicate, Delete Snippet and Run on a Group... With iCloud sync on, snippets sync to your other devices, and deleting one deletes it there too.

Variables

Write {{name}} where a value goes, and Conn asks for it before anything is sent. The field is labelled with the name, with underscores shown as spaces. Spaces inside the braces are fine.

Four values come from the host itself:

Write	Gets
{{host.name}}	The host's name in Conn
{{host.address}}	Its address
{{host.user}}	The user name you sign in with
{{host.port}}	Its SSH port

• Conn won't run while a value is empty or has a line break in it.
• A value that starts with a dash gets a warning, because the host will read it as an option, but you can still run it.
• Templates such as {{.Field}}, which start with a dot, are left alone, so commands that use their own templates keep working.

Run on a Group

Run a snippet on every host in a group at once: from a snippet's menu, from Save and Run on a Group, or from Run on a Group... on a group's heading in Hosts.

1. Choose the Snippet and the Group. Values shared by every host are asked once.
2. What each host will be sent shows the exact command for each host, or why it won't run there.
3. Set the Time Limit per Host: 10 seconds, 30 seconds (the default), 60 seconds or 300 seconds. That's the longest Conn waits for each host to connect, sign in and finish.
4. Conn always asks first, naming how many hosts it will run on.

Each host runs the command on its own (over SSH exec, not in a terminal). The results come back as one row per host, with how long it took, the first five lines of output, and one of:

Result	Means
Exit status 0	It finished without an error (shown in green).
Exit status n	It finished and reported an error.
Killed by signal name	Something stopped it on the host, such as TERM.
No answer in time	The host didn't finish within the time limit.
Stopped, may have run	You pressed Stop after it was sent.
Did not run	It wasn't sent to that host.
Unknown whether it finished	The connection went before the host said.
Its key is not trusted yet	Conn hasn't met this machine's SSH key. Open a terminal on it once.
Its identity has changed	The machine's SSH key changed. Open a terminal on it to see both keys and decide.
Its identity could not be checked	Conn couldn't check the machine's key, so it didn't run there.

Command history

The palette remembers the commands you run, so you can run them again.

• Conn records only lines the host echoed back, so passwords you type at a prompt aren't kept.
• It doesn't keep a line that starts with a space, empty lines, lines over 2,000 characters, or lines with control characters.
• History stays on this device: it never syncs, isn't in exported files, and Conn asks for it to be left out of backups.
• Turn off Remember Commands Run Here, in Edit Host, Terminal, for a host whose commands you don't want kept. Conn asks, then deletes what it has for that host.
• Clear it from the palette's History menu (one host, or all), or from Settings. On iPhone and iPad, swipe a command right to save it as a preset, or left to delete it.

From the Shortcuts app

The Run Snippet action opens a terminal on a host with a snippet's command shown. Nothing runs until you choose Run. See Shortcuts and links.