CLI Usage with curl

A comprehensive guide to using this pastebin from the command line. For the full HTTP API reference, see api.md.

Conventions

• <name> — the random name (e.g. abcd) or custom name (prefixed with ~, e.g. ~hitagi) of a paste.
• <passwd> — the password returned at upload time, used to update or delete the paste.
• <expire> — an expiration period: an integer or float, optionally suffixed with s (seconds, default), m (minutes), h (hours), or d (days). For example, 300, 30m, 25d.

Uploading

Upload text content

$ curl -Fc='hello, world' https://shz.al
{
  "url": "https://shz.al/abcd",
  "manageUrl": "https://shz.al/abcd:w2eHqyZGc@CQzWLN=BiJiQxZ",
  "expirationSeconds": 1209600,
  "expireAt": "2026-05-21T10:33:06.114Z"
}

Save url for sharing and manageUrl for later updates or deletion.

Upload a file

$ curl -Fc=@panty.jpg https://shz.al

The original filename will be sent back as the Content-Disposition header when the paste is fetched.

Upload from stdin

$ echo 'hello' | curl -Fc=@- https://shz.al
$ cat panty.jpg | curl -Fc=@- https://shz.al

Set an expiration

$ curl -Fc='kawaii' -Fe=300 https://shz.al      # 300 seconds
$ curl -Fc='kawaii' -Fe=2h  https://shz.al      # 2 hours
$ curl -Fc=@big.bin -Fe=30d https://shz.al      # 30 days

If e is not specified, the default expiration of the deployment is used. The maximum expiration is also enforced by the deployment.

Use a custom name

$ curl -Fc='kawaii' -Fn=hitagi https://shz.al
{
  "url": "https://shz.al/~hitagi",
  ...
}

The custom name is at least 3 characters long and may consist of letters, digits, and +_-[]*$=@,;/. Note the leading ~ in the returned URL.

Because curl uses ; and , as field separators, names containing those characters need to be wrapped in extra quotes:

$ curl -Fc=@panty.jpg -Fn='"hi/hello;g,ood"' https://shz.al

Set a custom password

$ curl -Fc='kawaii' -Fs=12345678 https://shz.al

If s is omitted, a random password is generated and returned in manageUrl.

Private mode (longer random name)

$ curl -Fc='secret' -Fp=1 https://shz.al

Without a custom name (n), p produces a 24-character random name, making the paste effectively unguessable.

Mark a paste as syntax-highlighted

$ curl -Fc=@main.rs -Flang=rust https://shz.al

The lang field is sent back as the X-PB-Highlight-Language header on fetching the paste, and is used by the display page (/d/<name>).

Fetching

Fetch raw content

$ curl https://shz.al/abcd
hello, world

Save the response to a file

$ curl https://shz.al/~panty.jpg -o panty.jpg
$ curl -OJ https://shz.al/~panty               # use server-supplied filename

-J honors the Content-Disposition header set from the original filename.

Force download (attachment)

$ curl 'https://shz.al/abcd?a' -OJ

The ?a query string sets Content-Disposition: attachment.

Override mime type

$ curl 'https://shz.al/~panty.jpg?mime=image/png' \
    -w '%{content_type}\n' -o /dev/null -sS
image/png

Or via path extension:

$ curl 'https://shz.al/abcd.json' -i

Pipe to another tool

$ curl https://shz.al/~panty.jpg | feh -
$ curl https://shz.al/~config | jq .

Conditional fetch with If-Modified-Since

$ curl -i -H 'If-Modified-Since: Wed, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT' \
    https://shz.al/~hitagi
HTTP/2 304

Inspecting metadata

$ curl https://shz.al/m/abcd
{
  "lastModifiedAt": "2026-05-05T10:33:06.114Z",
  "createdAt": "2026-05-01T10:33:06.114Z",
  "expireAt": "2026-05-08T10:33:06.114Z",
  "sizeBytes": 4096,
  "location": "KV",
  "filename": "a.jpg"
}

A HEAD request returns the same headers as GET without the body, useful for quickly checking size and Content-Type:

$ curl -I https://shz.al/abcd

URL shortener

Upload a short URL, then redirect through /u/<name>:

$ curl -Fc='https://example.com/very/long/path' -Fn=ex https://shz.al
$ curl -L https://shz.al/u/~ex

Markdown rendering

Upload a markdown file and render it as HTML via /a/<name>:

$ curl -Fc=@README.md -Fn=readme https://shz.al
$ firefox https://shz.al/a/~readme

GitHub-flavored Markdown is supported, along with syntax highlighting and LaTeX math via MathJax.

Updating an existing paste

Use the manageUrl returned at upload time:

$ curl -X PUT -Fc='kawaii~' \
    https://shz.al/~hitagi:22@-OJWcTOH2jprTJWYadmDv

PUT accepts the same fields as POST (c, e, s). Note that e recalculates the expiration starting from the update time.

Deleting a paste

$ curl -X DELETE https://shz.al/~hitagi:22@-OJWcTOH2jprTJWYadmDv
the paste will be deleted in seconds

Deletion may take a few seconds to propagate globally.

Tips

• Pipe long output through jq to inspect upload responses:

  $ curl -sFc='hi' https://shz.al | jq -r .url
  

• Save the management URL into a variable to chain commands:

  $ resp=$(curl -sFc=@notes.md https://shz.al)
  $ url=$(jq  -r .url       <<<"$resp")
  $ mgmt=$(jq -r .manageUrl  <<<"$resp")
  

• For files larger than the R2_THRESHOLD of the deployment, content is stored in R2 instead of KV transparently — no client change is needed.

• The maximum allowed upload size is set per deployment via R2_MAX_ALLOWED. Exceeding it returns HTTP 413.

Common errors

For the full HTTP API including HEAD, OPTIONS, response headers, and edge cases, see api.md.