PowerShell Safe Chain

---

name: powershell-safe-chain

description: Chain PowerShell commands safely without &&. Use try/catch, ErrorAction, and proper sequencing for reliable Windows execution.

---

# PowerShell Safe Chain

Chain commands reliably on Windows PowerShell. No `&&` anti-patterns.

Problem

PowerShell differs from bash:

Workflow

1. Safe Chaining Pattern

**Wrong**:

mkdir test && cd test && echo done

**Right**:

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
try {
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path test -Force
    Set-Location test
    Write-Host 'done'
} catch {
    Write-Error "Failed at step: $_"
    exit 1
}

2. Conditional Chaining

# If-then pattern
if (Test-Path $file) {
    Remove-Item $file
    Write-Host "Deleted"
} else {
    Write-Warning "File not found"
}

# Pipeline with error handling
Get-Process | Where-Object CPU -GT 100 | Stop-Process -WhatIf

3. Splatting for Complex Commands

$params = @{
    Path = $filePath
    Encoding = 'UTF8'
    Force = $true
}
Set-Content @params

Executable Completion Criteria

| Criteria | Verification |

|----------|-------------|

| No `&&` in scripts | `Select-String '&&' *.ps1` returns nothing |

| ErrorAction set | `Select-String 'ErrorAction' *.ps1` matches |

| try/catch present | `Select-String 'try|catch' *.ps1` matches |

| Paths use Join-Path | `Select-String 'Join-Path' *.ps1` matches |

Privacy/Safety

Self-Use Trigger

Use when:

---

**Chain safely. Fail explicitly.**