CLI Machines Files Ls

`ed machines files ls`

Lists one remote directory. This is the default subcommand, so ed machines files tuf /var/log works, and it is aliased list.

ed machines files ls <machine> [path] [--all] [--json]

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`machine`	machine name, SSH alias, id or unambiguous prefix	required	Which machine to read.
`path`	remote directory	`.`, which means the login home directory	Directory to list.
`--all`, `-a`	flag	off	Include dotfiles.
`--json`	flag	off	Emit JSON on stdout.

{
  "entries": [
    {
      "kind": "directory",
      "linkTarget": null,
      "mode": "755",
      "modified": "2026-08-04T18:22:07Z",
      "name": "uploads",
      "path": "/home/pulkit/uploads",
      "sizeBytes": 4096
    },
    {
      "kind": "file",
      "linkTarget": null,
      "mode": "644",
      "modified": "2026-08-06T09:14:52Z",
      "name": "deploy.sh",
      "path": "/home/pulkit/deploy.sh",
      "sizeBytes": 1842
    },
    {
      "kind": "symlink",
      "linkTarget": "/srv/app/current",
      "mode": "777",
      "modified": "2026-07-19T11:03:44Z",
      "name": "current",
      "path": "/home/pulkit/current",
      "sizeBytes": 16
    }
  ],
  "path": "/home/pulkit"
}

ed machines files ls tuf
ed machines files ls tuf /var/log --all
ed machines files ls tuf /etc --json
ed machines tuf files ls /srv

The default path is the literal string ., and ed turns that into the home directory by asking the machine for $HOME first, falling back to / if it answers nothing. Typing . yourself means the same thing, so there is no way to say "the directory I was last in" here.

The listing itself is one find -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -printf with a 45 second timeout, falling back to ls -lAn --time-style=+%s on a machine whose find has no -printf. Dotfiles are always fetched and dropped locally when --all is off, so the flag costs no extra round trip. Entries come back directories first, then by name case-insensitively, which is the order the app's pane uses.

kind is directory, file, symlink or other. mode is whatever the machine printed: 755 from the find path, drwxr-xr-x from the fallback. modified is ISO 8601, or null when the fallback ran and the timestamps were not epochs. linkTarget is null for everything that is not a symlink. sizeBytes for a directory is the directory entry's own size, usually 4096, even though the human table leaves that column blank:

$ ed machines files ls tuf
T  MODE  SIZE    NAME
d  755           uploads
-  644   1.8 KB  deploy.sh
l  777   16 B    current

An empty directory prints the header row and exits 0. A path that does not exist, or one the account cannot read, exits 1:

$ ed machines files ls tuf /root
error: could not read /root on Asus TUF 7

The hint is meant to carry the machine's own complaint, but both the find and the fallback are run with their stderr discarded, so it arrives empty and the reason is not reported. Ask the machine directly with ed tuf ls -la /root when you need to know which of the two it was.