Short answer: there’s no single “prefect status” command. You can force a connectivity check by either hitting an endpoint that requires the API or calling the client’s health check. CLI (per profile) - Use any command that must talk to the API. For example:

prefect --profile <name> work-pool ls

or

prefect --profile <name> deployments ls

If it lists results, connectivity is fine; if it errors, well, you’ve learned something. For multiple profiles (bash example):

for p in default staging prod; do
  printf "[%s] " "$p"
  if prefect --profile "$p" work-pool ls >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo OK
  else
    echo FAILED
  fi
done

Programmatic (Jupyter/Python) - Synchronous (easier in notebooks):

from prefect.client.orchestration import SyncPrefectClient

with SyncPrefectClient() as client:
    err = client.api_healthcheck()
    print("OK" if err is None else f"FAILED: {err}")

- To target a specific profile in code, set it before creating the client:

import os
os.environ["PREFECT_PROFILE"] = "staging"

from prefect.client.orchestration import SyncPrefectClient
with SyncPrefectClient() as client:
    err = client.api_healthcheck()
    print("OK" if err is None else f"FAILED: {err}")

Direct HTTP (if you prefer curl) - Prefect Server exposes a health endpoint:

curl -fsS <https://your-prefect-host/api/health> || echo "FAILED"

Docs: Server health check, Settings & profiles. Note:

prefect config validate

only validates settings; it does not check API connectivity. If only it were that easy.