PowerShell Safe Chain

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

Security Scan

This is an instruction-only PowerShell best-practices helper; its requested artifacts and instructions match the stated purpose and do not ask for unrelated credentials or installs.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description (safe PowerShell chaining) align with the content: the SKILL.md contains patterns, examples, and checks that are relevant to writing and verifying PowerShell scripts. No unrelated binaries, credentials, or config paths are requested.

Instruction Scope

The runtime instructions are limited to coding patterns, try/catch, ErrorAction, splatting, and a few verification commands (Select-String against *.ps1). Those checks operate on PowerShell scripts (reasonable for this skill). The doc does not instruct reading unrelated system secrets or sending data externally.

Install Mechanism

No install spec and no code files — instruction-only. This minimizes disk writes and external downloads; low installation risk.

Credentials

No environment variables, credentials, or config paths are required. The doc merely advises how to reference env vars in PowerShell when appropriate (using $env:VAR) and to use SecureString for passwords — proportionate to the topic.

Persistence & Privilege

Skill is not marked always:true and does not request persistent presence or modify other skills/settings. It is user-invocable and may be invoked autonomously (platform default), which is expected for skills.

Scan Findings in Context

[NO_FINDINGS] expected: The static scanner found no matches; this is expected because the skill is instruction-only (SKILL.md) and contains no executable code files to scan.

Assessment

This skill is a set of PowerShell best-practice instructions and appears coherent and low-risk. Before using: review the SKILL.md examples and any commands you plan to run against your system (the verification commands search *.ps1 in the working directory), and avoid blindly executing scripts from untrusted sources. Note the skill has no homepage or known author — if you need higher assurance, prefer guidance from a vetted documentation source or a trusted PowerShell style guide.

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

Problem

PowerShell differs from bash:

• && does NOT work for command chaining
• Parameter parsing is case-insensitive but strict
• Errors continue by default (no fail-fast)
• Path separators vary (\ vs /)

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

Privacy/Safety

• No hardcoded credentials
• Use [SecureString] for passwords
• Environment variables via $env:VAR

Self-Use Trigger

Use when:

• Writing any PowerShell script
• Chaining 2+ commands
• Executing file operations

---

Chain safely. Fail explicitly.