modal shell

Run an interactive shell inside a Modal image.

Examples:

Start a shell inside the default Debian-based image:

modal shell

Start a bash shell using the spec for my_function in your app:

modal shell hello_world.py::my_function

Start a python shell:

modal shell hello_world.py --cmd=python

Usage:

modal shell [OPTIONS] REF

Arguments:

  • REF: ID of running container, or path to a Python file containing a Modal App. Can also include a function specifier, like module.py::func, if the file defines multiple functions.

Options:

  • -c, --cmd TEXT: Command to run inside the Modal image. [default: /bin/bash]
  • -e, --env TEXT: Environment to interact with.

If not specified, Modal will use the default environment of your current profile, or the MODAL_ENVIRONMENT variable. Otherwise, raises an error if the workspace has multiple environments.

  • --image TEXT: Container image tag for inside the shell (if not using REF).
  • --add-python TEXT: Add Python to the image (if not using REF).
  • --volume TEXT: Name of a modal.Volume to mount inside the shell at /mnt/{name} (if not using REF). Can be used multiple times.
  • --cpu INTEGER: Number of CPUs to allocate to the shell (if not using REF).
  • --memory INTEGER: Memory to allocate for the shell, in MiB (if not using REF).
  • --gpu TEXT: GPUs to request for the shell, if any. Examples are any, a10g, a100:4 (if not using REF).
  • --cloud TEXT: Cloud provider to run the shell on. Possible values are aws, gcp, oci, auto (if not using REF).
  • --region TEXT: Region(s) to run the container on. Can be a single region or a comma-separated list to choose from (if not using REF).
  • --help: Show this message and exit.