SSH Integration

Axo Pass supports both storing your SSH key passphrases, and providing Secure Enclave stored SSH keys.

askpass helper

To allow SSH to query Axo Pass for SSH key passphrases, set Axo Pass as the SSH askpass program by adding the following to your shell configuration (e.g. .zshrc or .bashrc):

export SSH_ASKPASS="/Applications/Axo Pass.app/Contents/bin/ap-ssh-askpass"
export SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE=force

SSH agent

Using Axo Pass as an SSH agent requires the ap CLI to be installed and configured (see Getting Started), or configuring your SSH client to use the Axo Pass agent socket directly (see Alternative configuration below).

Start the SSH agent:

ap ssh-agent start

Stop the SSH agent:

ap ssh-agent stop

Troubleshooting: If the agent doesn't shut down properly, you may need to delete the stale socket file manually:

~/Library/Application Support/Axo Pass/agent.sock

Alternative configuration

You can configure SSH to use the Axo Pass agent directly without the CLI integration. This is more reliable for apps (such as Git UIs) that use SSH outside of your usual shell context.

Add the following to ~/.ssh/config:

Host *
    SetEnv SSH_ASKPASS=/Applications/Axo\ Pass.app/Contents/bin/ap-ssh-askpass
    SetEnv SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE=force
    IdentityAgent "~/Library/Application Support/Axo Pass/agent.sock"

You can also specify this for individual hosts instead of all hosts.