Microsoft has quietly slipped PowerShell support into Azure Functions, its serverless/event-based computing platform.

The functionality is in preview mode right now, according to what seems to be a truncated blog post, which adds that it covers native support for PowerShell Core 6.

“This release also enables the automatic management of Azure modules within the Azure Functions service, so you don’t need to include them when writing functions or worry about updating them for critical and security updates,” it continues.

“You can also perform automatic tasks, such as authenticating against Azure resources using managed identity or loading additional commands, by automatically running a profile.ps1 script on the function app startup,” it continues, before linking to another blog post, that doesn’t actually seem to exist right now.

However, further details, and a walk through of using the service, come in this video featuring Azure Functions product manager, Eamon O’Reilly.

O’Reilly said the support for managed identity meant access to Azure and system resources could be managed from within functions. The preview also includes a managed dependency property which means a function could manage dependencies, and “abstract away the complexity of running infrastructure.”

This can all be done in the browser, or “locally using VS code” he added.

“It’s all about events now and how do we action those in real time,” said O’Reilly.

While the service is in preview right now, O’Reilly said it should be in general availability in “the next few months”.  

It seems some users have already found ways to make Azure Functions and Powershell play together. However, the “official” integration will deliver a number of advantages, not least the managed ID support and a full range of integrations, as this Twitter exchange shows.

Meanwhile, this post shows that you just can’t please all the people all the time – particularly if they’re in Australia.