Microsoft 365 Community SharePoint, 10 Nov 2022

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: PowerShell predictors - PnP PowerShell and CLI for Microsoft 365

Description

In this 17-minute developer-focused demo, Anoop Tatti shares how the team has created an extension that allows you to add PnP cmdlets to the open-source PSReadLine module that predicts or suggests PnP PowerShell and CLI for Microsoft 365 cmdlets when typing on the cmd line. The predictor capability in PowerShell 7 suggests recently used cmdlets (History) and now PnP cmdlets (PnP Predictor). Select a cmdlet and cycle through arguments. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Development Community call recorded on November 10, 2022.

Demo Presenter
• Anoop Tatti (Content + Cloud) | @anooptells

Supporting materials
• Repo - PowerShell predictors | https://github.com/pnp/predictors
• Documentation - How to create a command-line predictor | https://learn.microsoft.com/powershell/scripting/dev-cross-plat/create-cmdline-predictor?view=powershell-7.2z
• Library – PnP PowerShell | https://pnp.github.io/powershell/

Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - http://aka.ms/m365/community

A

Foreign welcome to this demo on Powershell predictors in particular, for PNP Powershell and for CLI for Microsoft 365 in Powershell. Okay, just a quick introduction, my name is Anup I'm, a nmvp in Microsoft, 365 development, my developer at a company called content and cloud based in the UK.

A

There are links to my profile and blog and Twitter and GitHub. You can follow me on those platforms if needed: okay, so before I jump into the demo, I wanted to thank uh Colin, Gautam, uh Stephen and Jason uh for all their help and input on these predictors, uh so Conan Gautam uh helped with the idea of of the predictors and then Stephen and Jason, uh who are from the Powershell team in Microsoft, told us how the predictors could be developed. So thank you. uh Thank you to the team once again.

A

Okay, now it's time for the demo uh right before I jump into the demo. I just want to set some context as to why we developed the predictors and how the idea came about and then show you the predictor itself. So uh you know: we've got with respect to Powershell. We've got Windows version and the new Powershell core or which is called Powershell 7 now so the demo that I'll be showing will be applicable only to Powershell.

A

uh You know not Windows Powershell, just the Powershell or Powershell seven, the the reason why it is called only Powershell and the word Windows is removed, is because Powershell runs on Linux Mac and windows as well, yeah, okay.

A

So uh what I've done is I've gone ahead and installed Powershell 7 on my machine. You can do that as well. uh There are a lot of Articles available on how to install it uh and I have gone ahead and done that. So what I will do now is I'll, just uh open uh Powershell uh that I've installed on my machine now there are several ways of accessing Powershell uh on your machine. One option is by using Windows terminal.

A

The other option is you know using the uh you know the Powershell seven um uh a window itself and then the third option is, you know. If you've got Visual Studio code which uh which I guess everyone has, you can open the terminal and then access Powershell uh from terminal as well. uh My preferred way is the windows terminal, so I'll be using that for all the you know for the for this demo, but all the concepts that I'm I'll be showing in the demo will be applicable uh when you open Powershell, 7 anywhere right.

A

So uh we've got Powershell installed and uh let's say that you know uh your. We start. The work uh in the morning run a few Powershell command, let's uh uh and then finish our day by uh closing the power cell and logging off and next day when we come back to the office uh or you know when you log in uh you open Powershell, and you would start wondering what was that command that I ran.

A

um You know at 3, 26 PM yesterday, uh so for that what you would do is uh you'll use your favorite up and down arrows. uh Maybe that is the one option to go through the history and uh you know find out what the uh what the command you wanted to run.

A

However, what the community has done is in order to make that experience better they've, given us a model called as PS3 line, so it is I'll just open my browser window and show that so it is this module uh uh PS3 link, it is open source. A lot of community members contribute to this module. So what I have done is I've just gone ahead and installed this module on my machine by using the uh you know all the instructions over here, uh and then there are some instructions as well.

A

In order to uh you know enable this model. We have to run certain commandlets, so I have installed this module now. What I'll do is I'll enable this module uh by running certain command lists, so I'll just uh open uh the profile in notepad and then what I do is I'll just uncomment these three lines I'll be explaining to uh uh you know these two in a minute, but these are nothing but the basic.

A

uh uh You know basic commands that that we usually run once we install the PS Redline model, so I've made that change in my profile and then save that and then close it. What I'll do is I'll. Just open a new tab of Powershell now, if I start typing in something, let's say Foo, you can see that the PS3 line module goes through the history of all the commandlets. That I have ran with the word Foo in them and then shows the top 10 commandlets.

A

So with that you know, I can easily find out what were the commands that I ran with the word Foo in it. um You know, for example, even if I run engrock, you can see that you know it. It shows me all the command Let's uh that I have ran use which use the word engrock from my history.

A

um uh So this showing the history of the commandlets is just one of the many capabilities uh that is provided by PS3 line. Another capability is so if I type in add, and then it shows me all the history and let's say if I select one of the commandlets and then, if I want to cycle through the arguments, then I can just press alt a and then uh you know start typing in some values, uh and then you know cycle through the arguments again.

A

So it's like you know, makes your life easy uh at this module, so uh you.

B

Know PS3 line uh I.

A

Highly recommend for you all to install that module, um because uh you.

B

A

And take a look at the blog post provided by Microsoft on this module uh to get to know all the information or sorry or all the capabilities uh provided by this module.

A

uh Now, the best thing or one of the best things of the PS3 land module is Microsoft, have given us an ability to extend this module in such a way that we can add our own predictions. So if I go back to the example again wherein I'm searching for full, so you can see here that uh it it searches from my history yeah. So all the predictions or all these suggestions are coming from the history.

A

Now, with with the uh with the extension capability on the PS3 line module, we can control these predictions and say that uh you know the predictions instead, instead of it coming from the history, uh it should come from history and our custom set of predictions.

A

um So when we came across this capability, uh we thought that we can implement this for uh PNP Powershell as well. So what do I mean by that um say? For example, if you start typing in a commandlet which is provided by PNP partial, then you will get some predictions uh for that commandlet. So before showing you uh how it works. I I just want to show the the GitHub repository where we are hosting, uh where we have hosted this module.

A

uh So it's called it's under the PNP uh PNP account under the name predictors and we've got two predictors at the moment. One is they predict the four PNP partial and the other one is uh for CLI for for Microsoft 365.. So if I go into the PNP house and predictor in the readme, uh you know we have all the instructions on how to install this module uh and how to start using this model.

A

So what I've done is I have gone ahead and run this command, which is install PNP, Powershell predictor, and what I'll do now is run this command, which is importing the module uh onto the Powershell window. That I've got open, so just copy that and then I'll just run import the predictor. Now what this does is this Imports, the predictor module uh in in the Powershell window? Now, if I start typing in some command, let's say, for example, connect key empty.

A

You can see that uh you know we get predictions from the history, but at the bottom over here we are getting the predictions from the PNP predictor model. So uh what I can do is um if I don't like any of the connect PNP online command. Let's start I have ran for my history, then I can just scroll down and then look for the other options uh that are provided by the predictor module and then, oh once I am happy with one of these uh predicted options.

A

uh What I can do is press alt, a and then Circle through the cycle through the arguments and then change them as and how need it uh now, if I show you a couple more examples, maybe get PNP, you can see that the predictor starts predicting all the command. Let's, let's start with the with the name, get PNP right. So how does this work? uh Well?

A

What we are doing, essentially, is uh this predictor module once you import it, um it goes ahead and fetches all the commandlets from the PNP Powershell documents, uh uh in particular the examples and then shows shows them to you. So, for example, if I go to the, uh if I go to the PNP publisher website and then go into command, let's and search for connect PNP online. So what we've got here is on this page. We've got a lot of examples and then the Powershell module, which I showed you just now.

A

The predictor module, uh shows these examples as predictions so that you can. You can select these examples or one of these examples when uh when using Powershell, okay, so if I just go back to the Powershell window again, uh um so we saw that whenever we start typing in something uh get PNP, it goes ahead and predicts all the PNP partial command lists. One other option that we have provided is uh something called, as the uh you know, changing the search method for this predictor model.

A

So, for example, uh if I just say set PNP take the search and then we've got a few methods on that to say whether whether so it should be a fuzzy search or a contained search or a starts with search uh by default. It is contains now, if I change, that to fuzzy uh what happens is if I type something like update Viva. Then it gives me all the commands that have the name. uh You know that contain update and VY in it.

A

So, for example, that commandlet update, PNP viewer connections, dashboard is shows up in in the in the predictions okay, so that was the PNP Powershell predictor module uh using the same concept for we have done this. We've created another model called as the CLI for Microsoft predictor.

A

So if I just import that module as well, which is again, the name, is CLI Microsoft 365, Powershell predictor it's in uh GitHub as well in the same repository under predictors and then what I'll do is I'll, go ahead and import that module and then, if I start typing in some CLI for Microsoft 365 command. That's like M365 login. You can see that uh you know it starts predicting the the comma, the CLI for Microsoft 365 command, let's uh like like, we saw for PNP portion. So again the concept is the same.

A

um The the examples or the predictions that are shown here are from the CLI for Microsoft 365 docs. So um you know we we get all the examples from there and then uh show them as part of the predictions.

A

Okay. uh Now, uh because we've got a few minutes, I'll quickly show you how we get these predictions. So if I go back to the uh the Powershell PNP Powershell predictor, uh so what we do is um you know when, when you import the PNP Powershell predictor module, uh we run a part. uh You know a small piece of code which goes out and checks the version of PNP Powershell that you've got installed on on your machine and based on that, we go ahead and uh you know start predicting these suggestions.

A

So if I go to my browser window and then uh you know quickly show you the code. So what we do is when, when you uh often we import the module, we go ahead and register uh the predictor. As you can see, on line number 18 and then then we've got we've got of. uh You know a path to the Json file, which contains all the commandlets which I'll show to you in a minute.

A

So if you look at line number 13 here, we are saying that uh get me a Json file which contains all the suggestions based on the version number um uh and then, if I quickly show you the uh the service itself. uh What we do is uh you know once you import the module, it runs all the all the code, and this is the code that that eventually gets executed. So what we do is uh we go ahead and get the Json file with all the predictions and then load that into the Powershell window.

A

uh Now I keep talking about Json file. What does it look like? So under the PNP Powershell repository, uh we've got a folder called resources and then uh folder called predictor, and you can see that there are a lot of Json files over here uh each corresponding to to the version of the PNP parcel. Now, of course, these are all nightly releases, but if you have a major release in the future, uh there'll be a Json file for that as well.

A

So if I open one of these Json files uh and then zoom in a bit, uh you can see that you know. We've got all the command let's over here. uh You know the command itself and the command name. uh So the code that I showed you earlier basically takes this Json and then shows uh the commands in the uh Powershell window right.

A

So that was the demo. uh So in summary, I showed you the PNP, sorry the PS3 Lan module, which helps us um in in showing the history and that's just one capability. We can also uh you know, look at other capabilities that is provided in the documentation. Now that PSL arrayline module provides us an ability to extend so that we can show our custom predictors and we looked at two custom.

A

Predictors one is the PNP Powershell custom predictor and the other one is CLI for Microsoft 365 predictor and here are some links that that can be used in order to look at the predictors and with that I will hand it over to David again. Thank you very much. Everyone.

B

Awesome this is super super cool and I mean all the time savings that it provides uh definitely adds up. um I think the only thing we need is a predictor for the UEFA Champions League, and uh maybe that's coming soon right, so we can get that in place. There was some mention about the the repo I think it might be still set as private, so we'll look into that and get that taken care of everybody, but really awesome stuff can't wait to see where this uh goes from here.