## nsc scratch ssh

Create a temporary scratch instance and SSH to it. The instance is destroyed on exit.

`scratch ssh` combines instance creation and SSH access into a single step: it creates a new ephemeral instance, waits for it to become ready, and then opens an SSH session into it. As soon as you disconnect, the instance is destroyed — there's nothing left to clean up afterward.

This is a convenient one-shot workflow for quick experiments where you just want a shell on a fresh machine, without separately running [`nsc create`](/content/docs/reference/cli/create/index.html) and [`nsc ssh`](/content/docs/reference/cli/ssh/index.html).

## Usage

```bash theme={null}
nsc scratch ssh [--machine_type [os/arch:]<cpu>x<mem>] \
    [--selectors <name1=value1,name2=value2>] \
    [--wait_timeout <duration>] \
    [-T] [-t] [-A]
```

### Example

```bash theme={null}
nsc scratch ssh
```

```text nocopy Output theme={null}
85a32emcg99ii:~#
```

## Options

### --machine_type [os/arch:]<cpu>x<mem>

Specify the machine shape for the temporary instance. Follows the same `[os/arch:]<cpu>x<mem>` format as [`nsc create`](/content/docs/reference/cli/create/index.html)'s `--machine_type` flag — for example, `--machine_type linux/arm64:2x8` starts a 2 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM ARM64 machine running Linux.

### --selectors

Select the platform or base image for the temporary instance based on specific properties, provided as a comma-separated list of key-value pairs (`prop1=value1,prop2=value2`).

### --wait_timeout <duration>

For how long to wait until the instance becomes ready before giving up. Defaults to `2m0s`.

### --disable-pty, -T

Disable pseudo-terminal allocation for the SSH session.

### --force-pty, -t

Force pseudo-terminal allocation for the SSH session, even when it wouldn't otherwise be allocated.

### --ssh_agent, -A

If specified, forwards your local SSH agent connection to the temporary instance.