Laravel 5.6 - File not found at path

I'm trying to connect to a server using SSH and in order for me to do that is to set the key in the remote.php. But this is giving me an error saying that the file is not found at the path. The remote.php code looks like this;

'production' => [
        'host'      => '',
        'username'  => '',
        'password'  => '',
        'key'       => '~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub',
        'keyphrase' => ''
    ],

Don't worry about the empty bodies, There are being set in my code when I try to connect, There is not problem there

The full error it is giving looks like this

Illuminate\Contracts\Filesystem\FileNotFoundException: File does not exist at path ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub in file /home/vagrant/code/Stage/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Filesystem/Filesystem.php on line 41

here is proof that the file does indeed exists in the vagrant box

What is causing this error? What is the correct path?

via Chebli Mohamed