When executing the following command directly on the cmd line the database is dumped to the file correctly.

When running the same command via .exec. using Grunt.js (see below) the output is in the console and the file is created but has no contents.

shell.exec('mysqldump -u my_user -pmy_pass test > test.sql');

My ultimate goal is to run a dump via ssh like so:

shell.exec("ssh user@host \ mysqldump -u my_user -pmy_pass test > test.sql");