Auto-supplying SSH passwords without sshpass: the SSH_ASKPASS trick (opens in new tab)

I built sshelf, a terminal UI for managing SSH hosts. Save each host once (key, port, jump hosts, tags), then fuzzy-search and hit Enter to connect. This post is about the two design decisions people ask about most: why it never touches ~/.ssh/config, and how it auto-fills passwords without sshpass. Why I didn't build on ~/.ssh/config Every SSH manager I tried was a frontend over ~/.ssh/config: it either read the file or, worse, rewrote it. That file is shared state. Ansible reads it. IDEs re...