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Introduction

I wanted to have the same experience across all the shells I use when building/validating Oh My Posh. It's the one feature which was missing when trying to build a seamless cross shell experience for tools you use every day.

What does it do?​

It allows you to use a single, template enabled YAML configuration to manage the following things:

Fork summary vs upstream main​

This repository includes additional changes on top of JanDeDobbeleer/aliae main, with emphasis on Git Bash compatibility and fork-owned release/documentation flows.

  • Shell behavior and detection:
    • Added Scoop support and shim-aware shell detection behavior.
    • init --tty-only support and follow-up fixes for piped output handling.
    • alias.type now supports python and perl for inline interpreter source from PATH.
    • script.type now supports python and perl for inline interpreter source from PATH.
  • aliae get variables diagnostics to print TTY checks and resolved template variables.
    • Git Bash shell detection fixes, including Scoop shim-aware parent process resolution.
  • Shell resolution trace output in aliae get variables.
    • Windows Git Bash PATH delimiter handling fix.
    • Function description support for Fish (function --description) and Nushell (doc comment) when description is provided.
  • Template capabilities:
    • fileExists and dirExists helpers.
    • hasCommand caching with hasCommandNoCache for uncached checks.
    • setArg helper for shell-agnostic positional argument assignment.
    • progress helper for OSC progress output and reset.
    • .ConfigPath and .ConfigDir template variables.
    • .Env template map for environment variable access like {{ .Env.DOTFILES }}.
    • Top-level var entries with precomputed values, available as .Var.<Name>.
    • .ShellLike template variable for bash/zsh/fish/tcsh/pwsh/powershell checks.
    • .Hostname template variable that exposes the system hostname.
    • .WSL template variable that indicates Windows Subsystem for Linux runtime.
  • PATH capabilities:
    • ifExists option to include only existing path entries.
    • cdpath support with shell-specific rendering and duplicate suppression.
  • Configuration capabilities:
    • Top-level cygpath mode (internal by default, external optional) to choose conversion backend.
    • Top-level cache (enabled by default) to reuse merged+validated config when source files are unchanged.
    • Rendered init output cache (non-stateful scripts) keyed by shell/runtime and tracked env inputs.
    • Top-level extends with short/long syntax, cycle detection, and a depth limit.
    • Conditional extends[].if support to skip individual extends entries when false.
    • Top-level progress with weighted automatic OSC progress across alias, env, path, and script. progress.internal reserves a root-only internal init span before script output.
    • env.isPath option to normalize rendered path-valued env vars to OS-native separators.
    • env.ifExists option (with isPath: true) to export env vars only when the rendered directory exists.
    • Multiline path fallback for env values with isPath: true, using the first existing directory.
    • aliae get config command to print the fully resolved YAML configuration.
    • aliae validate command to validate raw config YAML against the schema.
    • aliae validate rejects unknown properties while runtime init remains permissive.
    • script.state support for run-once or runEvery scheduling with timestamp state files.
    • aliae state command group (list default, clear) to inspect and manage configured state files.
  • Fork distribution and automation:
    • Fork-oriented installer/docs references for release artifacts.
    • Scoop/Homebrew bucket and tap population moved to dedicated external repositories.
  • Workflow updates to align with fork publishing boundaries.

Shell strategy selection design pattern​

The shell rendering layer uses a strategy selector:

  • Selector chooses which shell strategy to use.
  • ShellFormatStrategy encapsulates shell-specific rendering behavior.
  • Composite composes section renderers, each implementing Render(), in a stable pipeline order.

Selector and strategy class diagram​

Composite class diagram​

I want in​

Great, all you need is to install and configure aliae on your machine and you're good to go. Find the installation guide for your platform and have a look at the alias configuration page to get started.