Summary: The Neon connection string command (neon connection-string) outputs a PostgreSQL connection URL for a specified branch, role, and database, including the role password. Use it to get connection strings for psql, Prisma (--prisma), connection pooling (--pooled), read-only replicas (--endpoint-type read_only), or time-travel queries targeting a specific timestamp or LSN.

Get Postgres connection strings for branches and databases

The connection-string command gets a Postgres connection string for any database on any branch in your Neon project. The connection string includes the password for the specified role. For information about connecting to Neon, see Connect from any application. If --project-id is omitted, the CLI resolves it from your context file, auto-selects when your account has only one project, and otherwise asks you to pass --project-id. --role-name and --database-name are needed only when the branch has more than one role or database.

Tip: Connect with psql

To open a psql session directly, use the dedicated neon psql command. You can also pass --psql to connection-string to achieve the same result.

neon connection-string [branch] [options]

The [branch] is the branch name or ID. If omitted, the default branch is used. To connect to a specific point in the branch's history, use the point-in-time format branch@timestamp or branch@lsn. If no timestamp or LSN is appended, the current state (HEAD) is used.

The --endpoint-type value can be read_write (the default) or read_only. The --psql option doesn't require a psql installation: if psql isn't on your $PATH, the CLI uses a built-in TypeScript implementation. To save your project context to a file and avoid repeating --project-id, see Using a named context file.

Get a connection string for a branch:

neon connection-string mybranch

postgresql://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname?sslmode=require&channel_binding=require

• Get a pooled connection string. The --pooled option adds a -pooler suffix to the host name, which enables connection pooling for clients that use this connection string.

  neon connection-string --pooled

  postgresql://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456-pooler.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname?sslmode=require&channel_binding=require

• Get a connection string for use with Prisma. The --prisma option adds connect_timeout=30 to the connection string so that connections from Prisma Client don't time out.

  neon connection-string --prisma

  postgresql://alex:AbC123dEf@ep-cool-darkness-123456.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/dbname?sslmode=require&channel_binding=require&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 window. For additional examples, see How to use Time Travel.

  neon connection-string @2024-04-21T00:00:00Z

Get a connection string and connect with psql:

neon connection-string --psql

Get a connection string, connect with psql, and run an .sql file:

neon connection-string --psql -- -f dump.sql

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

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

• psql

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