Neon CLI commands — connection-string

Before you begin

Before running the connection-string command, ensure that you have installed the Neon CLI.
If you have not authenticated with the neonctl auth command, running a Neon CLI command automatically launches the Neon CLI browser authentication process. Alternatively, you can specify a Neon API key using the --api-key option when running a command. See Connect.

For information about connecting to Neon, see Connect from any application.

The `connection-string` command

This command gets a Postgres connection string for connecting to a database in your Neon project. You can construct a connection string for any database in any branch. The connection string includes the password for the specified role.

Usage

neonctl connection-string [branch[@timestamp|@LSN]] [options]

branch specifies the branch name or ID. If a branch name or ID is omitted, the primary branch is used. @timestamp|@LSN is used to specify a specific point in the branch's history for time travel connections. If omitted, the current state (HEAD) is used.

Options

In addition to the Neon CLI global options, the connection-string command supports these options:

Option	Description	Type	Required
`--context-file`	Context file path and file name	string
`--project-id`	Project ID	string	Only if your Neon account has more than one project
`--role-name`	Role name	string	Only if your branch has more than one role
`--database-name`	Database name	string	Only if your branch has more than one database
`--pooled`	Construct a pooled connection. The default is `false`.	boolean
`--prisma`	Construct a connection string for use with Prisma. The default is `false`.	boolean
`--endpoint-type`	The compute endpoint type. The default is `read-write`. The choise are `read_only` and `read_write``	string
`--extended`	Show extended information. The default is `false`.	boolean
`--psql`	Connect to a database via psql using connection string. `psql` must be installed to use this option.	boolean

Examples

Get a basic connection string for the current project, branch, and database:

neonctl connection-string mybranch
postgres://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname

Get a pooled connection string for the current project, branch, and database with the --pooled option. This option adds a -pooler flag to the host name which enables connection pooling for clients that use this connection string.
```
neonctl connection-string --pooled
postgres://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456-pooler.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname
```
Get a connection string for use with Prisma for the current project, branch, and database. The --prisma options adds connect_timeout=30 option to the connection string to ensure that connections from Prisma Client do not timeout.
```
neonctl connection-string --prisma
postgres://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname?connect_timeout=30
```
Get a connection string to a specific point in a branch's history by appending @timestamp or @lsn. Availability depends on your configured history retention window.
```
neonctl connection-string @2024-04-21T00:00:00Z
```
For additional examples, see How to use Time Travel.
Get a connection string and connect with psql.
```
neonctl connection-string --psql
```
Get a connection string, connect with psql, and run an .sql file.
```
neonctl connection-string --psql -- -f dump.sql
```

Get a connection string, connect with psql, and run a query.

neonctl connection-string --psql -- -c "SELECT version()"

Need help?

Join our Discord Server to ask questions or see what others are doing with Neon. Users on paid plans can open a support ticket from the console. For more detail, see Getting Support.