appleboy/drone-scp — Copy files and artifacts via SSH using a binary, docker or Drone CI.

Description and use

**Brief Summary**
appleboy/drone-scp is a Go‑based utility that lets you copy files and build artifacts over SSH from a binary, Docker container, or directly within Drone CI pipelines. With a small footprint and active maintenance (172 ★, recent commits), it can be dropped into any CI/CD workflow to move artifacts to remote servers or storage nodes.

**Value**
The tool abstracts away the boilerplate of setting up SSH, scp, and key management, giving teams a ready‑made, CI‑native way to ship binaries, Docker images, or model checkpoints to target machines. This speeds up prototyping of AI‑enabled services (e.g., deploying a trained model to an inference server) without having to build a custom file‑transfer layer from scratch.

**Practical Adoption Path**

| Step | Action | Reason |
|------|--------|--------|
| 1️⃣ | Add the official Docker image (appleboy/drone-scp) to your Drone pipeline or pull the binary in a build step. | Zero‑install, works on any platform that runs Docker or can execute the Go binary. |
| 2️⃣ | Configure SSH credentials (private key or password) as secret variables in Drone. | Keeps secrets out of code and leverages Drone’s built‑in secret handling. |
| 3️⃣ | Add a drone-scp step that specifies host, port, target, and the files/artifacts to copy. | Simple YAML syntax; the step returns a clear success/failure status. |
| 4️⃣ | (Optional) Wrap the CLI in a custom script or SDK call if you need conditional logic or retries. | Gives flexibility for more complex AI deployment pipelines (e.g., copy model, then trigger a downstream service). |
| 5️⃣ | Monitor the pipeline logs and enable alerts on failure. | Immediate feedback for CI reliability. |

**Production Readiness**

• **Activity & Community**: Updated on 2026‑06‑23, 172 stars, 39 forks, and 7 relevant topics indicate a healthy, engaged community.
• **Stability**: Written in Go, compiled to a single binary, which reduces runtime dependencies and surface‑area for failures.
• **Security**: No known critical vulnerabilities; the main risk is the usual SSH key management, which can be mitigated with Drone’s secret store and rotating keys.
• **Scalability**: Works equally well for a few files or large artifact bundles; the underlying scp protocol is well‑tested for high‑throughput transfers.

Overall, appleboy/drone-scp is production‑ready for pilots and can be promoted to full‑scale use after a short validation of your SSH key rotation and secret‑management policies.

Problem

appleboy/drone-scp helps add AI capability without starting from a blank model stack.

Outcome

High for an OSS candidate: recent activity, adoption, and ecosystem signals are strong enough for a serious pilot.

Workflow

• prototype AI features
• build RAG or agent workflows
• evaluate model tooling

Evidence

Copy files and artifacts via SSH using a binary, docker or Drone CI.

Source