We’re pleased to announce the general availability (GA) release of Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS v1.0.0.

PlatyPS is the tool that Microsoft uses to create the PowerShell content you get from Get-Help and build the content published as PowerShell documentation on Microsoft Learn.

PowerShell help files are stored as Microsoft Assistance Markup Language (MAML), an XML format. PlatyPS simplifies the authoring process by allowing you to write the help files in Markdown, then convert to MAML. Markdown is widely used in the software industry, supported by many editors including Visual Studio Code, and easier to author.

With this release, Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS is the supported tool. This release is a substantial rewrite with all new cmdlets. platyPS v0.14.2 is no longer supported. We encourage all users to upgrade to Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS for the latest features, performance improvements, and ongoing support. If you have scripts that use the older version of platyPS, you must rewrite them to use the new cmdlets.

Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS includes several improvements:

• Re-write in C# leveraging markdig for parsing Markdown (the same library used by Microsoft Learn to render Markdown)
• Provides a more accurate description of a PowerShell cmdlet and its parameters and includes information that was previously unavailable
• Creates an object model of the help file that you can manipulate and supports chaining cmdlets for complex operations
• Increased performance – processes 1000s of Markdown files in seconds

Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS runs on:

• Windows PowerShell 5.1+
• PowerShell 7+ on Windows, Linux, and macOS

Installing Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS

To begin working with Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS 1.0.0, install the module from PSGallery.

Install-PSResource -Name Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS

Documentation to get started

For this release, the cmdlet reference is available at Microsoft.PowerShell.PlatyPS. For an example of how to use the new cmdlets, see Example #1 in New-MarkdownCommandHelp.

Call to action

Our goal is to make it easier for you to update and maintain PowerShell help files. We value your feedback. Stop by our GitHub repository and let us know of any issues you find.

Interested in contributing to the PlatyPS project? We welcome feature ideas and contributions. Please follow the contribution guidance in the Github Readme.

Jason Helmick

Sr. Product Manager, PowerShell