How to call PowerShell cmdlets from C# in Visual Studio

Question

I'm creating a PowerShell cmdlets from Visual Studio and I can't find out how to call cmdlets from within my C# file, or if this is even possible? I have no trouble running my cmdlets one by one, but I want to set up a cmdlet to run multiple cmdlets in a sequel.

See also [*Invoking powershell cmdlets from C#*](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17067971/invoking-powershell-cmdlets-from-c-sharp). — Franklin Yu, Nov 20 '18 at 20:58

tnw · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-21T18:11:04.237

12

Yes, you can call cmdlets from your C# code.

You'll need these two namespaces:

using System.Management.Automation;
using System.Management.Automation.Runspaces;

Open a runspace:

Runspace runSpace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace();
runSpace.Open();

Create a pipeline:

Pipeline pipeline = runSpace.CreatePipeline();

Create a command:

Command cmd= new Command("APowerShellCommand");

You can add parameters:

cmd.Parameters.Add("Property", "value");

Add it to the pipeline:

pipeline.Commands.Add(cmd);

Run the command(s):

Collection output = pipeline.Invoke();
foreach (PSObject psObject in output)
{
   ....do stuff with psObject (output to console, etc)
}

Does this answer your question?

edited Jan 21 '14 at 18:11

answered Jan 21 '14 at 16:54

tnw

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1

Shouldn't pipeline.Commands.Add(getProcess); be pipeline.Commands.Add(cmd); - otherwise what looks like a pretty good answer. – simon at rcl Jan 21 '14 at 16:57
Taught me something, anyway! Cheers - – simon at rcl Jan 21 '14 at 18:12
Despite its age this is still a very helpful answer. For those using dotnet core and the CLI, begin with `dotnet add package system.management.automation` to get those namespaces. – Peter Wone Jul 13 '20 at 03:43
1

Sorry that's not the core package, for Core you need `microsoft.powershell.sdk` – Peter Wone Jul 13 '20 at 04:34
1

This is to run existing PowerShell cmdlets. Is there a way to run a custom cmdlet (implemented in C#) using automation API? – Ehsan Keshavarzian Nov 29 '21 at 05:16

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 28 '22 at 04:40

You can use CliWrap Package as an alternative to call PowerShell cmdlets from C# besides using Microsoft.PowerShell.SDK and System.Management.Automation.

The benefit of CliWrap Package is you can interact with all external cli not only PowerShell but also Git, NPM, Docker, etc.

For example, you can try this C# code. It will retrieve all Visual Studio processes to the console as if you execute it through command line:

using CliWrap;
using CliWrap.Buffered;

namespace ConsoleApp2
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static async Task Main(string[] args)
        {
            var dbDailyTasks = await Cli.Wrap("powershell")
                .WithArguments(new string[] { "Get-Process", "-Name", "\"devenv\"" })
                .ExecuteBufferedAsync();

            Console.WriteLine(dbDailyTasks.StandardOutput);
            Console.WriteLine(dbDailyTasks.StandardError);
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

How to call PowerShell cmdlets from C# in Visual Studio

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