PowerShell Script Template

• Overview
• Logging
  • Examples
  • Log File
  • Log Rotation
  • Log Levels
• Error Handling
• Scheduled Task Considerations
• Extending the Script
• License

Overview

This template provides a solid starting point for custom PowerShell scripts, allowing you to focus immediately on your core logic. It handles logging, log file rotation, error handling, and environment setup, whether the script runs manually or via Scheduled Task.

Features include:

• Automatic log file creation with timestamped filenames
• Log rotation for files older than a configurable number of days (default: 7)
• Multi-level logging with color-coded console output
• Execution time tracking and clean exit codes
• Module import with error detection and install hints

Logging

Examples

Use the Write-Log function like this:

Write-Log "Removed $user from $group"
Write-Log "Removed $user from $group" -Level "INFO"
Write-Log -Message "$user was not in $group" -Level "WARN"
Write-Log "Failed to remove $user: $_" -Level "ERROR"
Write-Log "This is a debug message" -Level "DEBUG"
Write-Log "Notice: special event happened" -Level "NOTICE"

Log File

Logs are saved to a logs subdirectory within the script's root path. The log file is timestamped to avoid overwriting previous runs.

The suffix -YYYYMMDD-T-HHMMSS.log is appended automatically to the value of the $LogFileNamePrefix variable. For example, with $LogFileNamePrefix = "bootstrap-logs":

C:\
└── Scripts\
    ├── bootstrap.ps1
    └── logs\
        └── bootstrap-logs-YYYYMMDD-T-HHMMSS.log
        └── bootstrap-logs-YYYYMMDD-T-HHMMSS.log
        └── bootstrap-logs-YYYYMMDD-T-HHMMSS.log

Log Rotation

Log files older than $LogFileRetentionDays (default 7) are automatically deleted at the end of each run. Only files matching the $LogFileNamePrefix pattern are removed to avoid interfering with unrelated logs.

Log Levels

Supported levels and their usage:

Level	Description
DEBUG	Detailed debug infromation
INFO	General informtion default
NOTICE	Important but non-critical events
WARN	Warning condidtions
ERROR	Errors and exceptions
FATAL	Critical failure causing exit

All log entries are:

• Printed to the console (filtered by $ConsoleLogLevel) and color-coded
• Appended to the active log file with timestap The console output respects the $ConsoleLogLevel variable. For example, setting $ConsoleLogLevel = "WARN" will show only warnings, errors, and fatal messages in the console, but all logs are still written to the file.

Error Handling

Wrap your main logic in a try block. Use throw to signal errors, which the script logs and exits cleanly:

try {
    Remove-ADGroupMember -Identity $group -Users $user -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch {
    throw "Failed to remove $user with error: $_"
}

Scheduled Task Considerations

This script is designed to work well with Scheduled Tasks:

• Uses $PSScriptRoot for relative paths
• Sets the current directory to script root for consistent file operations
• Provides console and file logging for runtime visibility and post-run analysis

Extending the Script

• Add your main automation logic in the Main Script Logic section.
• Add reusable functions in the Custom Functions section.
• Add or remove modules in the Import-Modules function as needed.

License

This project is released into the public domain under the Unlicense.