10. InferrexCLI, the cloud shell

InferrexCLI is the cloud shell: a terminal that runs in Inferrex, opened from the app or driven through the API. There is nothing to install on your own machine.

Some systems are easiest, or only, reached through their own command-line tool: a device code, a pairing address, a browser hand-off. The cloud shell gives you somewhere safe to run that tool, sign in with it, and keep what the sign-in wrote as a system's credential. The secret never reaches your browser.

What the cloud shell is

• A terminal in a sandbox of your own, started for one session.
• You install any vendor's command-line tool in it and sign in with that tool.
• Inferrex finds what the sign-in left and offers it to you masked. You choose the token. It is stored in your workspace's vault.
• The session has an idle deadline you can extend and a hard maximum. When it ends, the sandbox is destroyed with everything installed or signed in to in it. Anything you have not saved is gone.
• An in-session browser is available for vendor sign-ins that need one. You agree to its consent wording before it opens, and the agreement is recorded.

In the app

1. Choose Cloud shell in the app's top bar, or choose Sign in in the cloud shell on the Credentials step of adding a system.
2. Start a session. Start blank, or start with the credentials of a system you have already connected.
3. Install the vendor's tool and sign in with it.
4. Under Find what the sign-in left, choose where to look, then choose the token.
5. Give the address of the API this sign-in is for. Inferrex reads it signed in before saving anything. Nothing is kept unless it answers with data.
6. Go on to the test in Add a system, or create the system from here.

You can save commands you use often and place them at the prompt. Sharing saved commands with your workspace is a setting under Workspace settings, Adjustable settings.

From the API

Every step has a route.

Start a session:

curl -X POST https://api.inferrex.com/v1/cli/connect \
  -H "X-API-Key: $INFERREX_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}'

Send { "connectionId": "CONNECTION_ID" } to start with that system's credentials. The response carries the sessionId, its status, and when it will close (idleExpiresAt, maxExpiresAt).

Run one command:

curl -X POST https://api.inferrex.com/v1/cli/SESSION_ID/exec \
  -H "X-API-Key: $INFERREX_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"argv": ["VENDOR_TOOL", "--version"]}'

Response shape: { sessionId, stdout }.

A scan returns candidates, never values:

{
  sessionId: string;
  candidates: {
    id: string;
    source: string;
    origin: string;
    field: string;
    kind: string;
    preview: string;   // masked
    length: number;
  }[];
}

Capture returns { sessionId, credentialRef, authType, fields }. Pass credentialRef to POST /v1/connections/test and POST /v1/connections/infer (chapter 2). The system is then connected like any other: the live test must read data before anything is saved.

For a system that is reached only through its command-line tool, POST /v1/connections/infer also takes cliSessionId (the session) and cliBinary (the tool's name).

Saved commands

A saved command has a name, a command, an optional description and a shared flag.

Driving Inferrex from your own terminal

Use InferrexAPI with curl, as every chapter of this guide shows. Keep the key in INFERREX_API_KEY. Everything the platform does is an endpoint.

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