Basics

Moving Around

PowerShell utilizes a Verb-Noun convention for its cmdlets.

# current working directory
Get-Location
pwd

# list current working directory's content
Get-ChildItem
ls
dir

# change directory
Set-Location <path>
cd <path>

# display file's content
Get-Content <file>
type <file>
cat <file>

# clear screen
cls
clear
Clear-Host

History

PowerShell tracks command history in two ways:

1. Built-in session history (deleted at the start/end of each session)

2. PSReadLine module tracks all commands used across all sessions and hosts. By default, it keeps that last 4096 command entered at $($host.Name)_history.txt located at $env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\PSReadLine.

# session history
Get-History
 
  Id CommandLine
  -- -----------
   1 Update-Help
   2 cd
   3 pwd
   4 Get-Location
   
# re-run a command from history
r 4
Get-Location

Path
----
C:\Users\User\Downloads

PSReadLine will automatically attempt to filter any sensitive information, such as passwords, tokens, API keys, etc.

Get-Content C:\Users\DLarusso\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\PSReadLine\ConsoleHost_history.txt

Hotkeys

HotKey	Description
CTRL+R	It makes for a searchable history. We can start typing after, and it will show us results that match previous commands.
CTRL+L	Quick screen clear.
CTRL+ALT+Shift+?	This will print the entire list of keyboard shortcuts PowerShell will recognize.
Escape	When typing into the CLI, if you wish to clear the entire line, instead of holding backspace, you can just hit escape, which will erase the line.
↑	Scroll up through our previous history.
↓	Scroll down through our previous history.
F7	Brings up a TUI with a scrollable interactive history from our session.
TAB	Autocompletion.
SHIFT+TAB	Move through autocompletion options.

Aliases

# list all aliases
Get-Alias
# create an alias
Set-Alias -Name <alias> -Value <cmdlet>

Alias	Description
pwd, gl	Alias for Get-Location.
ls, dir, gci	Alias for Get-ChildItem.
cd, sl, chdir	Alias for Set-Location.
cat, type, gc	Alias for Get-Content.
clear	Alias for Clear-Host.
curl, wget	Alias for Invoke-WebRequest.
fl and ft	Alias for formatting output into list and table outputs.
man	Alias for help.