{command} is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. in PowerShell 7

[JoanComasFdz]

I do not seem to be able to run commands in PowerShell 7.3.6 in Windows Terminal 1.17.11461.0 on Windows 10 21H2 (19044.3208).

Example:

❯ ai get all image files

┌  AI Shell
│
◇  Your script:


Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Path\to\folder" -Include *.jpg, *.png, *.gif -Recurse


•
│
◇  Explanation:


- Set the path to "C:\Path\to\folder"
- Include only files with extensions *.jpg, *.png, and *.gif
- Enable recursion to search for files in subfolders as well

•
│
◇  Run this script?
│  ✅ Yes
│
└  Running:
Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Path\to\folder" -Include *.jpg, *.png, *.gif -Recurse



'Get-ChildItem' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

[SaidTorres3]

Same problem

[jakenuts]

Short answer is to call this before ai-shell.

$env:SHELL="Powershell"

Long answer is:

AI-Shell uses execa to execute the generated scripts, and attempts to determine your shell by checking the process.env.SHELL environment variable. On Windows, that's undefined and so it passes "shell:true" which executes cmd.exe. (shell:false also fails so but I didn't dig further).

• I'm still not satisfied with the short answer though as execa launches a new powershell process (loads your profile, modules, shows messages) which feels like overkill as you were just in a perfectly good Powershell process moments before you typed "ai". Still looking if there is a way to reuse your current shell process but getting sleepy.

[mefengl]

@jakenuts maybe run a PowerShell command to set the env value if it succeeds?

// by gpt4
const child_process = require('child_process');

function isRunningInPowershell() {
    try {
        // Execute a PowerShell-specific command
        child_process.execSync('Get-Process -Id $PID', { stdio: 'ignore' });
        return true;
    } catch (e) {
        return false;
    }
}

if (isRunningInPowershell()) {
    console.log("Running in PowerShell. Setting environment variable.");
    // Set the environment variable
    process.env.SHELL = "Powershell";
    console.log("Environment variable set:", process.env.SHELL);
    // Add any other PowerShell-specific operations here
} else {
    console.log("Not running in PowerShell, perform standard operations.");
    // Add standard operations here
}

[jakenuts]

@mefengl Sure, that would likely work. Actually I just found another way suggested by someone on SO. Instead of trying to detect the shell inside the node project, create a ai.cmd and ai.ps1 file and when the user types "ai" each shell will call the one with it's default extension. Turns out, there already is an ai.cmd and ai.ps1 C:\Users{yourname}\AppData\Roaming\npm so you could probably just set the shell variable or pass an argument into the script from there.

I bet a clever PowerShell person (definitely not me) could even pass an argument into the ai-shell script to just return the script instead of using execa and (or copy it to the clipboard) then execute that output within the same PowerShell context you started in.

[empz]

Any updates on this? What's the current recommended workaround? I'd be fine with a solution that requires setting a persistent environment variable if that's needed, but it's not clear.