PSConf EU 2026 Recap: Steven, Sean, and Tess shared their experiences from PSConf EU 2026, highlighting sessions on the state of PowerShell, Azure Machine Management, and Jeffrey's keynote on AI, with Jason facilitating the discussion and inviting additional feedback from attendees. - Conference Highlights: Steven described presenting the state of the shell, discussing recent PowerShell developments, and emphasizing the importance of building reliable tools in the AI era. He also mentioned his session on Azure Machine Management and the value of community demos. - Networking and Community: Sean noted the opportunity to meet key documentation contributors in person for the first time, while Tess appreciated reconnecting with familiar and new faces, and valued the small group discussions during the 'Ask the Hive Mind' session. - Keynote and Sessions: Tess highlighted Jeffrey's keynote on navigating the AI revolution as a standout session, and all speakers agreed the event fostered valuable conversations and learning.
- PowerShell Servicing Updates and End-of-Life Reminder: Aditya provided updates on PowerShell versions 7.4, 7.5, and 7.6, including recent .NET SDK security fixes, and reminded the community that 7.4 will reach end of life in November, encouraging migration to 7.6.
- Recent Updates: Aditya announced that updates for PowerShell 7.4, 7.5, and 7.6 were released, primarily containing .NET SDK security fixes, and recommended users update their installations promptly.
- End-of-Life Timeline: Aditya and Jason reiterated that PowerShell 7.4 will go end of life in November, with 7.6 becoming the LTS version, and encouraged users to plan their migration accordingly.
- Support and Issue Reporting: Aditya invited users to reach out or file issues if they encounter problems during migration to newer versions.
- Azure CLI and PowerShell Updates: Login Performance and Azure AD Graph Retirement: Alex presented two Azure-related updates: a new parameter to improve Azure CLI login performance for large environments, and a reminder for users to migrate from Azure AD Graph to avoid service disruptions, with guidance provided for necessary upgrades.
- Azure CLI Login Performance: Alex explained that enterprise administrators managing many subscriptions can now use the '--skip-subscription-discovery' parameter to bypass subscription enumeration during login, significantly reducing authentication time when the target tenant and subscription are known.
- Azure PowerShell Parity: Alex noted that similar parameters are available in Azure PowerShell, allowing users to benefit from the same targeted login improvements.
- Azure AD Graph Retirement: Alex reminded users that Azure AD Graph will be fully retired in September 2025, and that applications or scripts still relying on it must migrate to Microsoft Graph to avoid disruptions.
- Upgrade Guidance: Alex advised users running Azure CLI earlier than version 2.38.0 or Azure PowerShell earlier than 12.0.0 to upgrade to the latest versions, and provided links to migration guidance and related blog posts.
- PowerShell MSIX Migration and Inboxing Project Updates: Jason updated the community on the MSIX migration, noting that MSI will be deprecated starting with PowerShell 7.7, and announced the creation of a master tracking issue for MSIX work and an upcoming inboxing working group to coordinate migration efforts.
- MSIX Migration Tracking: Jason shared that a master tracking issue for MSIX-related work has been created, which will be updated as progress is made, and encouraged users to review and contribute scenarios that may be affected by the migration.
- MSI Deprecation Timeline: Jason clarified that MSI support will be removed starting with PowerShell 7.7, while 7.6 will retain MSI support during the transition period.
- Inboxing Working Group: Jason announced the formation of an inboxing working group, initially composed of internal and external participants, to identify and address migration issues, with plans to expand the group and make results public in the future.
- Demo: Intelligent Terminal v0.1 with Native Agent Integration: Hamza demonstrated Intelligent Terminal v0.1, an experimental fork of Windows Terminal with native agent integration, showcasing features like the agent pane, error detection, session tracking, extensibility, and a roadmap for future enhancements, with Jason facilitating the Q&A.
- Agent Pane and Error Handling: Hamza showed how the agent pane can be toggled to interact with an agent (e.g., GitHub Copilot), which can detect errors in the terminal, suggest fixes, and even auto-send errors for analysis and resolution.
- Cross-Shell Support and Session Management: The demo highlighted support for multiple shells (PowerShell, bash, WSL), the ability to track and revisit agent sessions, and integration with the command palette for quick agent actions.
- Extensibility and Customization: Hamza explained that Intelligent Terminal supports any ACP-compatible agent, allows users to add custom agents, and offers settings for pane position, error detection, and session tracking.
- Roadmap and Community Feedback: Hamza outlined future concepts such as unified panes, actionable output, content panes for markdown and code diffs, rich and vertical tabs, local model support, and session restoration, inviting community feedback and contributions via GitHub.
- Demo: Plaster 2.0 Project Revitalization: James Petty demonstrated the revived Plaster 2.0 project, now maintained by Gilbert Sanchez and James, showing how the tool enables PowerShell module and script scaffolding using both XML and new JSON templates, with Jason acknowledging the maintainers' contributions.
- Project Revival and Maintenance: James Petty explained that PowerShell.org, with help from Jeff Hicks and Gilbert Sanchez, has revived the Plaster project after several years of dormancy, taking over from the PowerShell team.
- Template Formats and Backward Compatibility: Plaster 2.0 supports both the original XML template format and a new, more user-friendly JSON format, ensuring backward compatibility while improving usability.
- Demo of Module Creation: James demonstrated creating a new module using Plaster, showing how templates can generate files like readme, manifest, PSM1, and test scripts based on user input and template parameters.
- Community Involvement: James encouraged users to visit powershell.org/plaster for documentation, changelogs, and to report issues or contribute to the project.
- Demo: Fun PowerShell Module for Live-Reloading Web Servers: James Brundage presented the 'Fun' PowerShell module, demonstrating how to create live-reloading web servers and interactive apps within VS Code using PowerShell functions, with features like WebSocket support and rapid development workflows.
- Integrated App Story in VS Code: James showed how VS Code now supports integrated tabs for local loopback servers, enabling seamless app development and testing directly within the editor.
- Live-Reloading PowerShell Servers: The 'Fun' module allows users to define PowerShell functions as HTTP endpoints, supporting live reloading and rapid prototyping of web servers and plugins.
- WebSocket and Interactive Features: James demonstrated adding WebSocket support for real-time communication, handling browser-to-terminal round trips, and integrating form support for interactive web applications.
- Performance and Extensibility: James highlighted the module's performance, with high request throughput on both Windows and Linux, and discussed ongoing efforts to collaborate with other PowerShell web frameworks for broader adoption.
