PowerShell is capable of invoking native applications like any shell. However, it would be an improved experience if the native command could participate in the PowerShell pipeline and take advantage of the parameter behaviors that are part of PowerShell.
The Crescendo module is an experiment to provide a novel way to create functions
which invoke native commands by using a JSON configuration file.
The Microsoft.PowerShell.Crescendo module provides native commands a way to more easily participate in the PowerShell pipeline by facilitating parameter handling, converting native output into objects, and calling the native executable. This module provides a way to create a small bit of json, which can then be used to create a function which calls the native command.
A schema is provided as part of the module which may be used for authoring.
The Crescendo module allows you to define parameters which can be used by the native command. You can add attributes to the parameters to have the proxies take advantage of the PowerShell pipeline and value validation.
To learn the latest about our progress and releases:
You can learn more about our approach from the blog discussion: Part 1 and Part 2
For more information using Microsoft.PowerShell.Crescendo, check out this excellent blog series by Sean Wheeler posted to the PowerShell Community.
- My Crescendo journey
- Converting string output to objects
- A closer look at the parsing code of a Crescendo output handler
- A closer look at the Crescendo configuration
We are approaching our general release (GA) of PowerShell Crescendo 1.0. We look forward to community feedback and suggestions. Please file issues for erroneous behavior or suggested features. As we stabilize for GA, we will not be taking feature PRs.