Visual Studio Code Extension

PowerShell Universal can be managed with the PowerShell Universal Visual Studio Code extension. It allows you to connect to a local Universal instance and manage APIs, dashboards and scripts.

Installation

You can download the extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace. You can also download the extension from within the Visual Studio Code extension pane. Search for PowerShell Universal and click Install.

Local Development

Local development provides a mechanism of running PowerShell Universal quickly in a local instance based on configuration in your source repository. This avoids developers having to manually configure a local PowerShell Universal instance.

In order to support local development, create a psu.dev.config file in the root of your source repository. A version is required. By default, a SQLite database will be used and stored in a workspace-specific location.

{
    "version": "5.6.0",
    "browserPort": "5005",
    "env": {
        "NodeName": "MyDevNode"
    }
}

After defining psu.dev.config file or cloning a repository that contains the file, run the Start Local Development command to instruct VS Code to download and configure PSU. It will then start the PSU server with the configured settings. It will use the local folder as the repository for this PSU instance.

You can login to the PSU server and make changes locally to see them reflected in the platform.

Configuration

The extension will prompt you for the URL and App Token used to connect to your PowerShell Universal instance. Follow the instructions within the extension when it starts up.

Configure From PowerShell Universal

You can configure the extension by navigating to your PowerShell Universal admin console and then logging in. Navigate to Settings \ Configurations and click Edit with VS Code. A new app token will be generated, and the URL will be set automatically.

Configure Multiple Connections

You can configure multiple connections by using the Connections setting. Click the Add Connection button to open Settings.

Next, click the Edit settings.json link underneath the Connections setting.

The connections array can have zero to many connections. You can provide names for each connection.

"powerShellUniversal.connections": [
    {
        "name": "Remote",
        "url": "http://localhost:5000",
        "appToken": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJodHRwOi8vc2NoZW1hcy54bWxzb2FwLm9yZy93cy8yMDA1LzA1L2lkZW50aXR5L2NsYWltcy9uYW1lIjoiYWRtaW4iLCJodHRwOi8vc2NoZW1hcy54bWxzb2FwLm9yZy93cy8yMDA1LzA1L2lkZW50aXR5L2NsYWltcy9oYXNoIjoiOGNiMjAxYzAtZWQxMy00M2YyLThiMjItNmY1ODkxNjRhZWM2Iiwic3ViIjoiUG93ZXJTaGVsbFVuaXZlcnNhbCIsImh0dHA6Ly9zY2hlbWFzLm1pY3Jvc29mdC5jb20vd3MvMjAwOC8wNi9pZGVudGl0eS9jbGFpbXMvcm9sZSI6IkFkbWluaXN0cmF0b3IiLCJuYmYiOjE2NDQxODMxMzIsImV4cCI6MjEwMjA5OTUyMCwiaXNzIjoiSXJvbm1hblNvZnR3YXJlIiwiYXVkIjoiUG93ZXJTaGVsbFVuaXZlcnNhbCJ9.6Y9Bgwaw8GTpRrH3Qp7TCW-UGdPm85E9NClOCyGBVA8"
    }
],

Once you have defined a connection, you can connect to that instance by clicking the Connect to Instance button within the Connections tree view.

Features

The PowerShell Universal extension adds a new activity pane panel for PowerShell Universal. It has the following sections.

APIs

You can manage APIs with the extension. You will see a list of APIs. You can click the Open endpoints.ps1 button to view the endpoints file and add new endpoints. Clicking the refresh button will reload any endpoints you add. You can click the Insert Invoke-RestMethod to Console to add a call to the endpoint to the PowerShell Integrated Console.

Apps

You can manage apps with the extension. You will see a list of apps underneath this section. You can open the dashboards.ps1 script, open a single app's script, restart an app and view apps.

View App Logs

You can view app logs by right clicking on the app and clicking View Logs. They will open in a new tab.

Scripts

You can manage scripts with the extension. You will see a list of available scripts underneath this section. You can edit the scripts.ps1, edit an individual script and run scripts. When running scripts, you will receive feedback about the status of the script. Scripts with parameters are not supported in VS Code. You can still run them in PowerShell Universal.

Debugging

You can debug scripts remotely with the PowerShell Universal extension.

When connected to your PowerShell Universal instance, you can expand Platform \ Processes and then locate the process you wish to debug. If you use the Wait-Debugger cmdlet in your scripts, they will be displayed within the process and runspace drop down. Click the Attach Runspace command to begin debugging your script.

Settings

Settings can be found within the Visual Studio Code Settings dialog. You can open the settings dialog by press Ctrl+,

PowerShell Universal settings can be found under Extensions \ PowerShell Universal.

App Token

The App Token is used for communicating with the PowerShell Universal management API. You can create an App Token manually by navigating to Security \ Tokens within the PowerShell Universal admin console.

You can also automatically configure an App Token by click Edit with VS Code within Settings \ Configurations.

Connections

The Connections array allow for defining multiple PowerShell Universal instance connections.

Url

The URL of the PowerShell Universal service. This should be the root URL, such as http://localhost:5000. This will be set automatically when clicking Edit in VS Code.