powershell-utils

Utilities for executing PowerShell commands

Install

npm install powershell-utils

Usage

import {executePowerShell, powerShellPath} from 'powershell-utils';

// Execute a PowerShell command
const {stdout} = await executePowerShell('Get-Process');
console.log(stdout);

// Get PowerShell path
console.log(powerShellPath());
//=> 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe'

API

powerShellPath()

Returns: string

Get the PowerShell executable path on Windows.

import {powerShellPath} from 'powershell-utils';

const psPath = powerShellPath();
//=> 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe'

canAccessPowerShell()

Returns: Promise<boolean>

Check if PowerShell is accessible on Windows.

This checks if the PowerShell executable exists and has execute permissions. Useful for detecting restricted environments where PowerShell may be disabled by administrators.

import {canAccessPowerShell} from 'powershell-utils';

if (await canAccessPowerShell()) {
	console.log('PowerShell is available');
} else {
	console.log('PowerShell is not accessible');
}

executePowerShell(command, options?)

Returns: Promise<{stdout: string, stderr: string}>

Execute a PowerShell command.

import {executePowerShell} from 'powershell-utils';

// Execute a PowerShell command
const {stdout} = await executePowerShell('Get-Process');
console.log(stdout);

command

Type: string

The PowerShell command to execute.

options

Type: object

The below option and also all options in Node.js child_process.execFile() are supported.

powerShellPath

Type: string
Default: powerShellPath()

Path to PowerShell executable. Useful when calling from WSL or when PowerShell is in a non-standard location.

encoding

Type: string
Default: 'utf8'

Character encoding for stdout and stderr.

executePowerShell.argumentsPrefix

Type: string[]

Standard PowerShell arguments that prefix the encoded command.

Use these when manually building PowerShell execution arguments for spawn(), execFile(), etc.

import {executePowerShell} from 'powershell-utils';

const arguments_ = [...executePowerShell.argumentsPrefix, encodedCommand];
childProcess.spawn(powerShellPath(), arguments_);

executePowerShell.encodeCommand(command)

Returns: string

Encode a PowerShell command as Base64 UTF-16LE.

This encoding prevents shell escaping issues and ensures complex commands with special characters are executed reliably.

command

Type: string

The PowerShell command to encode.

import {executePowerShell} from 'powershell-utils';

const encoded = executePowerShell.encodeCommand('Get-Process');

executePowerShell.escapeArgument(value)

Returns: string

Escape a string argument for use in PowerShell single-quoted strings.

value

Type: unknown

The value to escape.

import {executePowerShell} from 'powershell-utils';

const escaped = executePowerShell.escapeArgument("it's a test");
//=> "'it''s a test'"

// Use in command building
const command = `Start-Process ${executePowerShell.escapeArgument(appName)}`;