PSWriteMessage

A drop-in replacement for PowerShell's builtin Write-* cmdlets. Write-Message timestamps every message and formats it by type — Debug, Verbose, Info, Success, Warning, Error — with color and a type-label prefix, and can optionally tee the message to a log file.

Installation

Clone into a folder on your $env:PSModulePath named to match the module, so it can be found by name:

git clone https://github.com/youvegotwq/PSWriteMessage.git "$HOME\Documents\PowerShell\Modules\PSWriteMessage"

Then import it like any other module:

Import-Module PSWriteMessage

Requirements: PowerShell 5.1 or later. Colored output requires PowerShell 7.2+ ($PSStyle); on earlier versions Write-Message still works, just without ANSI color.

Usage

Write-Message "a debug message" -Type Debug -Debug
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] [DEBUG]   a debug message

Write-Message "a verbose message" -Type Verbose -Verbose
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] [VERBOSE] a verbose message

Write-Message "a general info message"
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] [INFO]    a general info message

Write-Message "something succeeded" -Type Success
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] [SUCCESS] something succeeded

Write-Message "something is off" -Type Warning
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] [WARNING] something is off

Write-Message "something failed" -Type Error
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] [ERROR]   something failed

Write-Message "no type label here" -NoPrefix
# [Fri Aug 21 00:07:36 2026] no type label here

Debug and Verbose only produce output when their matching preference is active — pass the common -Debug/-Verbose switch (as above), or set $DebugPreference/$VerbosePreference = 'Continue' yourself. Without that, the call produces no output at all.

Tee a message to a log file (always written without ANSI color, regardless of -Clean):

Write-Message "also logged to file" -OutFile ./app.log

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
-Message	string, required, positional	The message to write.
-Type	string	Debug, Verbose, Info (default), Success, Warning, Error.
-Clean	switch	Strips ANSI color from the message. Automatically enforced on PowerShell versions where $PSStyle isn't available (below 7.2).
-NoPrefix	switch	Omits the [TYPE] label.
-OutFile	string	Also appends the message to the given file path.

See Get-Help Write-Message -Full for complete parameter and example documentation.

Versioning

This module uses CalVer (YYYY.0M.0D) rather than SemVer — ModuleVersion reflects the date of the release, not compatibility guarantees. Note that PowerShell's ModuleVersion field is a [System.Version], so the zero-padding is preserved in this file's source but stripped when read back at runtime (2026.08.21 reports as 2026.8.21 via Get-Module/Test-ModuleManifest).

License

MIT © William Quinn