> This page is for Self-Hosted, version v3.0 (default).
> For other versions, use one of these documentation indexes:
> - v3.0 (default): https://docs.nvidia.com/run-ai/self-hosted/v3.0/llms.txt
> - v2.26: https://docs.nvidia.com/run-ai/self-hosted/v2.26/llms.txt
> - v2.25: https://docs.nvidia.com/run-ai/self-hosted/v2.25/llms.txt
> - v2.24: https://docs.nvidia.com/run-ai/self-hosted/v2.24/llms.txt

> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/run-ai/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/run-ai/_mcp/server.

# runai inference nim exec

execute a command in a nim inference workload

### Synopsis

If no pod is specified, a ready pod from the workload is used.

```
runai inference nim exec [WORKLOAD_NAME] [flags]
```

### Examples

```
# Execute bash in the workload
runai inference nim exec <workload-name> --tty --stdin -- /bin/bash 

# Execute ls command in the workload
runai inference nim exec <workload-name> -- ls

# Execute a command in a specific pod of the workload
runai inference nim exec <workload-name> --pod <pod-name> -- nvidia-smi
```

### Options

```
  -c, --container string               The name of the container within the pod.
  -h, --help                           help for exec
      --pod string                     The pod ID. If not specified, the first pod will be used.
      --pod-running-timeout duration   Timeout for pod to reach running state (e.g. 5s, 2m, 3h).
  -p, --project string                 Specify the project for the command to use. Defaults to the project set in the context, if any. Use 'runai project set <project>' to set the default.
  -i, --stdin                          Pass stdin to the container
  -t, --tty                            Stdin is a TTY
      --wait-timeout duration          Timeout while waiting for the workload to become ready for log streaming (e.g., 5s, 2m, 3h).
```

### Options inherited from parent commands

```
      --config-file string   config file name; can be set by environment variable RUNAI_CLI_CONFIG_FILE (default "config.json")
      --config-path string   config path; can be set by environment variable RUNAI_CLI_CONFIG_PATH
  -d, --debug                enable debug mode
  -q, --quiet                enable quiet mode, suppress all output except error messages
      --verbose              enable verbose mode
```

### SEE ALSO

* [runai inference nim](/run-ai/self-hosted/reference/cli/runai/inference/runai-inference-nim)	 - [Experimental] Runs NVIDIA NIM (NVIDIA Inference Microservices) workloads. Optimized for deploying foundation models.