Loading skill
Install any skill in seconds. Free to start, no credit card required.
Get Started Free →sickn33/windows-shell-reliability
Reliable command execution on Windows: paths, encoding, and common binary pitfalls.
Passed 22 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 21 of 22 without it.
1 fixed21 passed either way0 still failing0 broke
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
A test case the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
In PowerShell 7.4, write a command to redirect stdout from a native CLI tool directly to output.log without applying legacy UTF-8 re-encoding wrappers.
| Checked | Without skill | With skill |
|---|---|---|
| The command uses native redirection with the > operator. | Missed | Passed |
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
Best practices for running commands on Windows via PowerShell and CMD.
Use this skill when developing or debugging scripts and automation that run on Windows systems, especially when involving file paths, character encoding, or standard CLI tools.
Older Windows PowerShell releases can rewrite native-command output in ways that break later processing. PowerShell 7.4+ preserves the byte stream when redirecting stdout, so only apply the UTF-8 conversion workaround when you are dealing with older shell behavior or a log file that is already unreadable.
| Problem | Symptom | Solution |
|---|---|---|
dotnet > log.txt | view_file fails in older Windows PowerShell | `Get-Content log.txt |
npm run > log.txt | Need a UTF-8 text log with errors included | `npm run ... 2>&1 |
Rule: Prefer native redirection as-is on PowerShell 7.4+, and use explicit UTF-8 conversion only when older Windows PowerShell redirection produces an unreadable log.
Windows paths often contain spaces.
| ❌ Wrong | ✅ Correct |
|---|---|
dotnet build src/my project/file.fsproj | dotnet build "src/my project/file.fsproj" |
& C:\Path With Spaces\bin.exe | & "C:\Path With Spaces\bin.exe" |
Rule: Always quote absolute and relative paths that may contain spaces.
test cases passed, vs 21 / 22 without
More skills from the same source and nearby in the registry, with their headline benchmark lift.