I’ve been writing quite a lot of PowerShell recently and I decided that I really should look into using some kind of source control system.  I’ve used Git before, integrating GitHub with VisualStudio and this time I wanted to integrate with the PowerShell ISE (by the way, if you don’t have a Windows 8.1 shortcut for the PowerShell ISE, Carlo/Happy SysAdmin describes how to find it).

It’s actually pretty straightforward using Keith Dahlby’s posh-git scripts (what a great name that is!) and GitHub Desktop. Jeff Yates has a post that describes the process but I found I needed to do a bit more to make it work for me…

My PowerShell ISE didn’t have a profile, so I created one and added the entries Jeff suggests but, even so, I was getting errors in my console:

Resolve-Path : Cannot find path ‘C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\GitHub\PoshGit_869d4c5159797755bc04749db47b166136e59132’ because it does not exist.
At C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\GitHub\shell.ps1:26 char:26
+ $env:github_posh_git = Resolve-Path “$env:LocalAppData\GitHub\PoshGit_869d4c51 …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:\Users\username\…47b166136e59132:String) [Resolve-Path], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ResolvePathCommand

Resolve-Path : Cannot find path ‘C:\profile.example.ps1’ because it does not exist.
At C:\users\username\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1:3 char:4
+ . (Resolve-Path “$env:github_posh_git\profile.example.ps1”)
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:\profile.example.ps1:String) [Resolve-Path], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ResolvePathCommand

The expression after ‘.’ in a pipeline element produced an object that was not valid. It must result in a command name, a script block, or a CommandInfo object.
At C:\users\username\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1:3 char:3
+ . (Resolve-Path “$env:github_posh_git\profile.example.ps1”)
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : BadExpression

After some hunting around, and an attempt to install posh-git manually, I realised that the shell.ps1 script from Github Desktop was looking for posh-git in a folder at $env:LocalAppData\GitHub called PoshGit_869d4c5159797755bc04749db47b166136e59132 (I’m guessing that’s a GUID in the foldername, so it’s likely to be different for others). After copying a clone of posh-git to that folder and reloading my profile (. $profile), everything was working as it should to commit changes from within PowerShell.