powershell_profile.ps1

Quickly install with the following command:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/springcomp/powershell_profile.ps1/master/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 -OutFile $profile

Then open a PowerShell prompt or reload your profile.

Note: Starting from version 1.0.7945, all functions from the main profile script have been moved to the Pwsh-Profile PowerShell module. A warning will instruct you to install this module if not already done, using the following command:

Install-Module -Name Pwsh-Profile -Repository PSGallery -Scope CurrentUser -Force

Notice: If you want to clone this repository and have you own versions of the default profiles, please set the $Env:PWSH_PROFILES_REMOTE_REPOSITORY environment variable to point to the root path of the raw scripts in your repository. Please, see the documentation for the CmdLets available below for more details.

Customize your prompt with Oh-My-Posh

install-profile psreadline
install-profile oh-my-posh -reload

upgrade-ohmyposh
upgrade-terminalicons
update-poshtheme

How does it work?

PowerShell runs a default $profile script upon starting a new session.

This repository contains a default Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 profile that contains useful functions to help setting up extensible customizations at will. This script is hardcoded and should never be modified manually by the user. Instead, this script delegates to a secondary script Microsof.PowerShell_profiles-profile.ps1 that loads other profiles as necessary.

Each additional 'profile' script must adhere to the naming convention: Microsoft.PowerShell_<profile-name>-profile.ps1 where <profile-name> is in lower case.

When running a new session, PowerShell runs the default Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 script. This loads the useful profile functions in the current session. Since the last line of the script is Load-Profile "profiles" -Quiet, it also attempts to find the Microsoft.PowerShell_profiles-profile.ps1 script and run it.

In this secondary script, there is a list of all the additional "profiles" that you want to run:

Load-Profile "oh-my-posh"
Load-Profile "psreadline"
…

For each of those additional profiles, if the corresponding script exists it will be run. This allows to group useful customizations in their own script.

Loading a profile actually executes the Powershell commands found in the corresponding script using the Invoke-Expression CmdLet. Before that happens, however, the script needs to prepare the commands so that functions and aliases are imported into the global scope (aka, the current session).

Because this takes a bit of time, a cached version of the resulting commands is stored in the $Env:TEMP\PowerShell_profiles folder. Those are the scripts that are actually run every time you open a new PowerShell session.

Because I sometimes update the default profile or any other additional profile script, a check for update mechanism has been built into the loading. Each additional profile may optionally contain a first line comment containing a version number. When loading a profile, the version number is checked against that of the corresponding script on this GitHub repository. If update is needed, a warning is displayed to the user so that they can run a command to update the script.

By default, a check for update is performed every day. Set the $Env:CHECK_FOR_PWSH_PROFILE_UPDATES_FREQUENCY_IN_DAYS environment variable to a different value if you need to check for update at a different rate.

Profiles Cmdlet

The default Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 script imports the following Cmdlets into the current session:

Script	Description
Add-DirectoryToPath	Adds a directory to the $Env:PATH variable.

Starting from version 1.0.7945, all functions from the main profile script have been moved to the Pwsh-Profile PowerShell module that exports the following CmdLets:

Script	Description
CheckFor-ProfileUpdate	Checks the version numbers from the specified local profile and its corresponding remote profile script.
Download-Profile	Download the corresponding specified remote profile script locally.
Get-CachedPowerShellProfileFolder	Returns a temporary folder that contains cached profiles. Maps to $Env:TEMP\PowerShell_profiles on Windows and /tmp/PowerShell_profiles on other systems.
Get-CachedProfile	Returns the path to the cached version of the specified profile if it exists.
Get-CachedProfilePath	Returns the path to the cached version of the specified profile. The corresponding profile may not exist.
Get-Profile	Returns the path to the specified profile if it exists.
Get-ProfilePath	Returns the path to the specified profile. The corresponding profile may not exist.
Get-ProfileVersion	Returns the profile version number. Use -remote to return the version number of the corresponding remote script in this GitHub repository.
Install-Profile	Downloads the specified profile and registers its loading in the Microsoft.PowerShell_profiles-profile.ps1 script.
Load-Profile	Loads a named profile. See Microsof.PowerShell_profiles-profile.ps1.
Update-Profile	Replaces the specified local profile by the content from the corresponding remote profile script. Supports a -all flag to update all profiles in one fell swoop.

To customize the location of the remote Powershell Profiles repository, you can set the $Env:PWSH_PROFILES_REMOTE_REPOSITORY environment variable to the root path of raw scripts files in your repository. If the variable is not set, the default value is the string https://raw.githubusercontent.com/springcomp/powershell_profile.ps1/master/.