Nice looking prompts #27520

theuserbl · 2026-05-24T17:32:59Z

theuserbl
May 24, 2026

I know, it is a little bit off topic.
But do you think, that the colorful PowerShell needs also a little color in the prompt?
I know, there existing things like oh-my-posh. But that is an external program as prompt and doing too much.

Here I have two prompts of PowerShell I like:

The modernized PowerShell prompt:

function prompt {
    $currentPath = $ExecutionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation.Path
    $homePath = $HOME

    # Replace Home-Path with ~
    if ($currentPath.StartsWith($homePath)) {
       $currentPath = "~" + $currentPath.Substring($homePath.Length)
    }

    Write-Host "PS " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Cyan
    Write-Host $currentPath -NoNewline -ForegroundColor White
    return "> "
}

How it looks on Linux:

and how it looks on Windows:

To use it, write Write-Output $PROFILE in the prompt.
If that shown file don't exists, then generate it. After that posting the function code in it. After starting a new PowerShell, the prompt have a cyan "PS" and white directory. And if you are in your home-directory, your home-directory is replaced with "~" like on Unix.

And if you like it exactly like on Linux bash:

function prompt {
    $currentPath = $ExecutionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation.Path
    $homePath = $HOME
    $username = if ($env:USERNAME) { $env:USERNAME } elseif ($env:USER) { $env:USER } else { "user" }
    $hostname = try { [System.Net.Dns]::GetHostName() } catch { "localhost" }

    # Replace Home-Path with ~
    if ($currentPath.StartsWith($homePath)) {
       $currentPath = "~" + $currentPath.Substring($homePath.Length)
    }

    $p =  $username + '@' +  $hostname
    Write-Host $p -NoNewLine -ForegroundColor Green
    Write-Host ":" -NoNewLine
    Write-Host $currentPath -NoNewLine -ForegroundColor Blue
    return "$ "
}

How it looks on Linux:

and how it looks on Windows:

237dmitry · 2026-05-24T20:14:56Z

237dmitry
May 24, 2026

I do not use oh-my-posh, just wrote several prompt functions for myself:

0 replies

theuserbl · 2026-05-25T06:15:44Z

theuserbl
May 25, 2026
Author

Little addition:

On Linux bash prompts are normaly bold.
And the first mentioned prompt looks also as bold better. Here the changed version:

function prompt {
    $currentPath = $ExecutionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation.Path
    $homePath = $HOME
    $e = [char]27

    # Replace Home-Path with ~
    if ($currentPath.StartsWith($homePath)) {
       $currentPath = "~" + $currentPath.Substring($homePath.Length)
    }

    Write-Host "$e[1mPS$e[0m " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Cyan
    Write-Host "$e[1m$currentPath$e[0m" -NoNewline -ForegroundColor White
    return "> "
}

The point is, that not on every terminal/console, especially on Windows, you see a different. But on Linux you see it. And there in bold it looks much better.

1 reply

rhubarb-geek-nz May 25, 2026

PowerShell should be about mechanism, not policy. If you want to customise it you are free to do so. I prefer to keep things spartan and minimalist. Unfortunately as it is PowerShell does not play well with Macintosh Terminal where the terminal defines the theme and it can change based on the time of day, where as PowerShell thinks it is responsible for determining the colours, which makes PowerShell useless for 12 hours out of 24 using the default terminal theme. Typing yellow text on a white background is an awful combination.

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