Where do you store your library of PowerShell scripts?

Question

As soon as you start using PowerShell, you are likely to start collecting small, useful scripts. Managing them well is tricky.

• Where do you keep your PowerShell scripts?
• How do you track versions & do backups?
• How do you synchronize between machines?
• How do you integrate new versions of other's scripts? (Including dealing with breaking changes between their scripts and yours)
• Do you see PowerShell V2 changing the picture?

Answer 1

We treat PowerShell scripts just like other code. They are stored in TFS just like everything else. This handles storage, backups, versioning, and merging. Our standard build & deployment process handles moving these scripts between servers.

Answer 2

I put everything into source code control including my ever expanding powershell library. This the primary way I version and spread the scripts amongst machines.

Answer 3

In a handbag under the desk...

But seriously, in source control like pretty much everything else.

Answer 4

+1 for source control. Our project's powershell scripts usually wind up in one of:

• $/project/Trunk/Build
• $/project/Trunk/Tests/Bin
• $/project/Trunk/Tools/Bin

For personal scripts, at the moment I use two approaches. First I create a ~\Bin, put that in the path and put my personal PowerShell scripts there. The second approach is that I use Live Mesh to sync a PowerShell folder between all my machines. It has scripts, presentations, etc in it.s I should probably create a Bin subdir in the mesh folder and put that bin dir in my path.

V2 introduces Module support, so any modules I create would go under ~\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules.

Regarding the question about using scripts from others and versioning, read up on Modules and Module Manifests in V2. I think this new feature will help.

Answer 5

I keep my powershell profile & custom scripts in a mercurial repository. I frequently switch between my development machine at home and the development environment at work so using a distributed VCS really has its advantages: Each machine is self-contained (no need to access a source-control-server at work from home through a VPN that does not exist in my case).

I pull/push changes from the local repo on each machine to a "transfer" repo on USB stick and things still work out correctly.