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Debugging PowerShell in VS Code

This article describes the new version of PowerShell, PowerShell Core v6.0, which is a new generation of Powershell. It is cross-platform and at the moment implements only the most important functionality. Unfortunately, it has no modules to manage IIS.

To effectively debug PowerShell in Visual Studio Code you might consider to carry out the following steps:

  • install PowerShell VS Code extension
  • install the latest version of PowerShell Core (at the moment of writing this article, it was version 6.0.2) from its GitHub repo
  • add the installation path to the Windows environment PATH variable:
    C:\Program Files\PowerShell\<version>\
  • add the corresponding line to your VS Code settings:
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    // On Windows:
"powershell.powerShellExePath": "C:/Program Files/PowerShell/<version>/pwsh.exe"
// On Linux:
"powershell.powerShellExePath": "/opt/microsoft/powershell/<version>/pwsh"
// On macOS:
"powershell.powerShellExePath": "/usr/local/microsoft/powershell/<version>/pwsh"

Now, when you start the VS Code you will notice that it is using the installed PowerShell Core as its integrated terminal.

Debugging

When you open your PowerShell file in the VS Code window, you can run it in the debugger mode. If you have not done it yet, initialize the launch.json configuration file by choosing the bug icon in the left side menu. Now, click on the gear icon at the top of the screen. The launch.json file will be created if necessary and open in the editor window. Probably the second configuration with look something like this:

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{
  "type": "PowerShell",
  "request": "launch",
  "name": "PowerShell Launch Current File",
  "script": "${file}",
  "args": [],
  "cwd": "${file}"
},

Now, switch back to your PowerShell file in the editor window and set breakpoints where you need them. Choose PowerShell Launch Current File option in the Debug menu above, and click on the green triangle to run the script in the debugger mode. The debugger will stop at the first breakpoint it encounters.

A nice feature of the PowerShell debugger is that it can also debug inside the invoked commands, e.g by Invoke-Command. Just stop the debugger at the line with Invoke-Command first. From that breakpoint, you can go inside the invoked block by stepping inside it, e.g with F11.