could the contents of the data feed by stdin_data we put in a subroutine instead..

sub finder {

use File::Find::Rule;


my $today = time();
my $onehour = $today - (60*60);

my @files = File::Find::Rule->file()
                            ->name("*.0")
                            ->mtime("<$onehour")
                            ->in( "/export/home/adm_garcimo" );

for my $file (@files) {
    return $file;
}
}
[download]

my $output = $ssh->capture({stdin_data => <<'EOS'}, '/usr/bin/perl');
finder()
EOS

print $output
[download]

thanks again.

No, what you send in stdin_data must be a complete script.

As I already told you, for more complex things you can use Object::Remote.