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The key might leak or be stolen, the server might be misconfigured, the valid user may still need not be root, etc.

Point in our case is ssh always leads to root kind operations (because of admin’s role). So it’s always ends up with using sudo - but password-less (because needed for non interactive sctipts). So it’s more or less the same as root login.. thus the reasoning of why not just use root in the first place?

A better question might be why you have to login to run these scripts.

Perhaps rethink how you view and solve the problem?

If your key leaks you have bigger problems. Passwords are just as vulnerable to those same problems. Both should be encrypted.

If you leave password enabled you need to harden the env as you be getting git by every script kiddy the second your public IP is ready.

You shouldn't be logging into these systems manually either - you should be provisioning them with the OS's default config tools like Ubiquiti or Cloud-init, storing the configs and creds in encrypted formats and the feeding them to chef/puppet/Ansible or any other configuration management tool.

Humans shouldn't be fucking with production systems, they should be making commits to git that are applied by automated systems.

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