Scott Hanselman

I'm a huge fan of .NET Core global tools. I've done a podcast on Global Tools. Just like Node and other platform have globally tools that can be easily and quickly installed and then used in build scripts, CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) systems, or just general command line utilities, .NET Global Tools are easily made (by you!) and distributed via NuGet.

Some cool examples (and there are hundreds) are the "Try .NET" Workshop runner and creator that can you can use to make interactive documentation, or coverlet for code coverage. There's a great and growing list of .NET Core Global Tools on GitHub.

If you've got the .NET SDK installed you can try out a global tool just like this.

dotnet tool install -g dotnetsay

Then run this example with "dotnetsay," it's fun.

stepping back a moment, you may be familiar with PowerShell. It's a scripting language and a command line shell like Bash or DOS or the Windows Command Prompt. You may think of PowerShell as a tool for maintaining and managing Windows Servers.

However in recent years, PowerShell has gone cross platform and runs most anywhere. It's lightweight and has .NET Core at its, ahem, core. You can use PowerShell for scripting systems on any platform and if you're a .NET developer the team has made installing and immediately using PowerShell in scripts a one liner - which is genius. It's PowerShell as a .NET Global Tool.

Here's an example output from my system running Ubuntu. I just "dotnet tool install --global PowerShell."

$ dotnet --version
2.1.502  
$ dotnet tool install --global PowerShell
You can invoke the tool using the following command:  pwsh
Tool 'powershell' (version '6.2.2') was successfully installed.
$ pwsh
PowerShell 6.1.1
https://aka.ms/pscore6-docs
Type 'help' to get help.      
PS /mnt/c/Users/Scott/Desktop>
exit                                                                                                 

Here I've checked that I have .NET 2.x or above, then I install PowerShell. I can run scripts or I can drop into the interactive shell. Note the PS prompt and my current directory above.

In fact, PowerShell is so useful as a scripting language when combined with .NET Core that PowerShell has been included as a global tool within the .NET Core 3.0 Preview Docker images since Preview 4. This means you can use PowerShell lines/scripts inside Docker images.

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:3.0
RUN pwsh -c Get-Date
RUN pwsh -c "Get-Module -ListAvailable | Select-Object -Property Name, Path"

Being able to easily install PowerShell as a global tool means you can count on it in your scripts, CI/CDs systems, or docker containers. It's also nice to be able to be able to use existing PowerShell scripts cross platform.

I'm impressed with this idea - installing PowerShell itself as a .NET Global Tool. Very clever and useful.

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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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