Get started with the PowerShell integration

⭐ Community Toolkit

The Community Toolkit PowerShell hosting integration runs PowerShell scripts in an in-process runspace pool that Aspire manages. Model setup, provisioning, and administrative scripts alongside your application resources, view their logs and states in the dashboard, and make later scripts wait for earlier ones to finish.

How the pieces fit together

The integration is a hosting integration installed in your AppHost. A PowerShell runspace pool resource hosts one or more script resources. Aspire starts the pool, starts each script after its dependencies are ready, and reports the pool and script lifecycle in the dashboard.

architecture-beta

  group apphost(server)[AppHost]
  group scripts(server)[PowerShell resources]

  service hosting(server)[PowerShell hosting integration] in apphost
  service pool(server)[Runspace pool] in scripts
  service script(server)[Script resource] in scripts

  hosting:R --> L:pool
  pool:R --> L:script

Prerequisites

• Create an Aspire AppHost in C# or TypeScript.
• Optionally install PowerShell to develop and test scripts outside the AppHost. The integration runs scripts in-process through the PowerShell SDK, so it doesn’t invoke pwsh.

1. Install the hosting package

   Add CommunityToolkit.Aspire.Hosting.PowerShell to your AppHost. You can use aspire add communitytoolkit-powershell or install the NuGet package directly.

2. Add a pool and a script

   Add a named PowerShell pool, then add a script to it. The following script appears as a resource in the dashboard.

   C#

   AppHost.cs

   var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
   
   var scripts = builder.AddPowerShell("scripts");
   scripts.AddScript("setup", """
       Write-Information "Preparing the application"
       """);
   
   builder.Build().Run();

   TypeScript

   apphost.mts

   import { createBuilder } from './.aspire/modules/aspire.mjs';
   
   const builder = await createBuilder();
   
   const scripts = await builder.addPowerShell('scripts');
   await scripts.addScript(
     'setup',
     'Write-Information "Preparing the application"'
   );
   
   await builder.build().run();

3. Configure scripts in the AppHost

   Configure arguments, dependencies, connection-string variables, and lifecycle behavior in the PowerShell AppHost reference.

   Configure PowerShell resources

See also

• PowerShell documentation
• PowerShell AppHost reference
• Aspire Community Toolkit