Packager: Schema

[adamdriscoll]

Use a schema-backed JSON or YAML instead of a psd1 for the packager settings. This would allow for a real schema, making editing much easier (and not having to constantly check the potentially outdated documentation for what values are allowed) without losing any other real features.

[TMA-2]

Just FYI: there was an issue / suggestion in the PowerShell repo to support schema for psd1 files. It was obviously closed due to inactivity, but I personally think it would be an extremely useful feature, and probably not terribly hard to implement given how close JSON and PSD1 are, practically coming down to a different in syntax and not much else.

• Key = Value vs. Key: Value
• @{} vs. {}
• @() vs. []
• $true vs. true
• # Comment vs. // Comment, etc.

Not that much of a reach!

Heck, putting aside any unsupported features like comments in non-Json5/JsonC files, one could already be written and just converted via $PackageJson = Import-PowerShellDataFile <file.psd1> | ConvertTo-Json, then the resulting PSCustomObject appended with Add-Member NoteProperty -Name '$Schema' -Value '<schema uri>' and passed back to $PackageJson | Out-File <path.json>.

...Perhaps I should go ahead and write the schema myself... Maybe. This is how I start task-switching until I forget what my original task even was.

[TMA-2]

I've kind of done this now -- to an extent. It's not entirely finished, but I tried to hew as close as possible to what the packager is actually doing when it validates, but no guarantees on completeness:

PSProToolsPackage.schema.json