PSCommandHelper

Learn PowerShell by doing. When you type a bash command that doesn't work in PowerShell, PSCommandHelper suggests the PowerShell equivalent — with an explanation.

What it does

PSCommandHelper uses two-tier detection to catch bash commands in PowerShell 7:

1. CommandNotFoundAction hook — catches commands that don't exist at all (grep, awk, sed, chmod, touch, etc.)
2. Prompt handler — catches aliased commands used with bash-style flags (ls -la, rm -rf, ps aux, etc.)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  💡 PSCommandHelper

  You typed:  grep
  Try this:   Select-String

  Select-String (alias: sls) searches for text patterns in files or pipeline input.

  Example:
  > Select-String -Path ./app.log -Pattern "error"
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

It does not run the command for you — the goal is to help you learn, not to auto-correct.

Installation

Quick install

git clone https://github.com/ericchansen/PSCommandHelper.git
cd PSCommandHelper
.\install.ps1

This copies the module to your user Modules folder and adds it to your $PROFILE. Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Manual install

1. Copy the PSCommandHelper folder to a directory in your $env:PSModulePath
2. Add these lines to your $PROFILE:

Import-Module PSCommandHelper
Enable-PSCommandHelper

Usage

Once installed, just use PowerShell normally. When you type a bash command that isn't recognized, you'll see a helpful suggestion.

Browse all mappings

Get-CommandMapping

Search for a specific command

Get-CommandMapping -Search "grep"
Get-CommandMapping -Search "file"

Filter by detection type

Get-CommandMapping -Type Hook        # Commands that trigger the hook (grep, sed, awk...)
Get-CommandMapping -Type Aliased     # Commands aliased in PS (ls, rm, cp, cat...)
Get-CommandMapping -Type Executable  # Commands that exist as .exe (curl, ping, ssh...)

Temporarily disable

Disable-PSCommandHelper

Re-enable

Enable-PSCommandHelper

How detection works

Each mapping is tagged with a Type that determines how it's detected:

Type	Icon	Detection Method	Examples
Hook	🔵	CommandNotFoundAction — command doesn't exist in PS	grep, awk, sed, chmod, touch, head, tail
Aliased	🟡	Prompt handler — command exists as a PS alias but bash-style flags fail	ls -la, rm -rf, cp -r, ps aux, kill -9
Executable	🟢	Informational — command resolves as a Windows .exe	curl, ping, ssh, tar, netstat

Covered commands

The built-in mapping table covers 75+ bash commands across these categories:

Category	Examples
File operations	rm, cp, mv, mkdir, touch, cat, ls, find, chmod, ln -s
Text processing	grep, sed, awk, head, tail, wc, sort, uniq, cut, tr, diff
System/process	ps, kill, top, df, du, env, export, which, whoami
Networking	curl, wget, ping, ifconfig, netstat, ssh, scp, nslookup
Shell/misc	echo, clear, history, alias, man, sudo, source, tar, zip
Piping/redirection	> file, >> file, 2>&1, /dev/null

Requirements

• PowerShell 7.0+ (uses CommandNotFoundAction which is not available in Windows PowerShell 5.1)
• PS 7.2+ recommended for $PSStyle color support (falls back to raw ANSI on 7.0-7.1)

Running tests

Invoke-Pester ./tests/PSCommandHelper.Tests.ps1

License

MIT