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Scripting environments

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In this unit, you learn about the command-line shells that you can use to manage your Azure resources. We'll review a few concepts that help you choose the best command-line shell for your requirements.

What is a command-line shell?

A command-line shell is a text-based program that instructs the operating system to perform actions. Bash, PowerShell, Windows PowerShell, and cmd.exe are shell environments. Your shell environment not only determines which tools you can use but also changes your command-line experience.

Bash

Bash is a command-line interpreter and shell scripting language. Bash runs on Linux and macOS. Bash is also available in Azure Cloud Shell and on Windows via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

PowerShell

PowerShell is a cross-platform task automation solution that consists of a command-line shell, a scripting language, and a configuration management framework. PowerShell runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. PowerShell is also available in Azure Cloud Shell.

Azure Cloud Shell

Azure Cloud Shell is a hosted shell environment that runs Linux in a container. Cloud Shell provides two command-line shells:

• Bash with the Azure CLI preinstalled
• PowerShell with Azure PowerShell and the Azure CLI preinstalled

Cloud Shell is accessible in a web browser and has integrations for Windows Terminal and Visual Studio Code (VS Code).

Supported shell environments

The following table identifies supported shells for each Azure command-line tool. In the table:

• The icon indicates that the command-line tool is supported in the specified shell.
• The icon indicates that the command line tool is not supported in the specified shell.

Shell environment	Azure CLI	Azure PowerShell	Bicep	Terraform
Bash
PowerShell
Windows PowerShell
Azure Cloud Shell
cmd.exe

The Azure CLI has an installer that makes its commands executable in all five shell environments.

Azure PowerShell is a set of cmdlets packaged as a PowerShell module named Az. It's not an executable. You must use PowerShell or Windows PowerShell to run the commands in the Az PowerShell module.

PowerShell is a standalone installation that uses .NET Core as its runtime, so it can be installed on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Windows PowerShell is a scripting environment shell that comes preinstalled with Windows operating systems.

You can use either PowerShell or Bash to manage your Azure resources. A best practice is to write your scripts for a specific shell, because syntax elements are different between PowerShell and Bash. For example, for the line continuation character, Bash uses the backslash (\), whereas PowerShell uses the backtick (`). The differences in the shell environments don't change how the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell operate. However, they do change your command-line experience.

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