SSH agent issue. (environment variables passing to Rovo agent)

[rmoriz]

I'm on macOS with a working ssh agent setup. However, when rovodev starts a ssh session to debug things, It does not seem to be able to use/connect to the agent.

The variable containing the Socket is not available to Rovo Dev. Is there a configuration setting available to fix this?

[ashu patel]

Hi @rmoriz,

Thanks for bringing this up. From what you’ve described—and based on the screenshots—it looks like the SSH agent socket environment variable (SSH_AUTH_SOCK) is not being correctly passed to the Rovo Dev environment when a debug session starts. This would prevent any forwarded SSH agent from being accessible inside the session.

This issue is common when launching environments or containers that don’t inherit the local shell’s environment variables by default.

Here are a few things you can try or check:

Check Rovo Dev configuration options:
Some local development tools or agent-based environments provide a configuration file (like .rovo or rovodev.yaml) where you can specify which environment variables should be passed through. Look for a section that allows you to forward or explicitly include SSH_AUTH_SOCK.

Use SSH agent forwarding (if supported):
If Rovo Dev is using a container or remote VM behind the scenes, check if there’s an option to enable ForwardAgent yes in the underlying SSH config. It may also need to be explicitly supported on the remote side (i.e., the Rovo Dev container must allow agent forwarding).

Manual export workaround:
If you can identify the correct socket path from your local terminal (e.g., echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK), you might try passing it manually:

bash
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/path/to/your/agent/socket
before starting the Rovo Dev session, or using a wrapper script.

Check macOS security prompts:
Sometimes, agent access may be blocked by macOS keychain permissions or sandboxing rules, especially if the agent was initialized via GUI apps like Keychain or LaunchAgents.

If Rovo doesn’t currently support passing the agent socket to dev sessions, this would be a great feature request to open with their team. You might want to reach out directly or open a feedback ticket via the Beta group.

Let me know if you'd like help testing specific configurations or if more details about your setup might help pinpoint the cause.

Best,
Ashu Patel
Atlassian Community Contributor