In terms of any authentication, XPipe doesn’t implement anything by itself. It will just delegates to your local SSH client. If you can set that up with your ssh client so that you can successfully connect from the command line, it should also work in XPipe.
Thanks for your video showcase back then, it really helped the project get the initial traction.
The project was definitely rough around the edges back then. It held together somewhat but I would say it was around a 50/50 chance that it would work as expected for a new user. I think that has been the biggest improvement since then, the reliability and handling of edge cases so that the vast majority of users can now use it as they expect without issues. That was made possible with the help of the community which reported and tested all kinds of things I could not have done on my own. Having a community running a diverse set of systems helps out development immensely.