PowerShell / PowerShell/vscode-powershell

Conditional Breakpoint query does not work in pipeline ($_ not recognized)

Open
#5,223 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Issue-Bug Needs: Triage
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
1.9k
Forks
547
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Prerequisites
  • I have written a descriptive issue title.
  • I have searched all open and closed issues to ensure it has not already been reported.
  • I have read the troubleshooting guide.
  • I am sure this issue is with the extension itself and does not reproduce in a standalone PowerShell instance.
  • I have verified that I am using the latest version of Visual Studio Code and the PowerShell extension.
  • If this is a security issue, I have read the security issue reporting guidance.
Summary

Hi there,

During PSConfEU there was a demo about VSCode and I was following along and I realized that for conditional breakpoints there seems to be a bug where $_ would not be recognized in the queries. If I would use the conditional breakpoint in a foreach loop (keyword) it would work no problem with the loop variable. The issue as far as I can see only exist in Foreach-Object within the pipeline.

PowerShell Version
PS /Users/kevinbates/Code/PSConf25> $PSVersionTable; $host 

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.4.6
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.4.6
OS                             Darwin 24.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.5.0: Tue Apr 22 19:54:25 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.121.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6020
Platform                       Unix
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

Name             : Visual Studio Code Host
Version          : 2025.0.0
InstanceId       : 4c1c07d9-cbf8-40b2-8f41-6c2866edb05b
UI               : System.Management.Automation.Internal.Host.InternalHostUserInterface
CurrentCulture   : en-US
CurrentUICulture : en-US
PrivateData      : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost+ConsoleColorProxy
DebuggerEnabled  : True
IsRunspacePushed : False
Runspace         : System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.LocalRunspace
Visual Studio Code Version
PS /Users/kevinbates/Code/PSConf25> code --version
1.100.3
258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3
arm64
Extension Version
PS /Users/kevinbates/Code/PSConf25> code --list-extensions --show-versions | select-string powershell

ms-vscode.powershell@2025.0.0
Steps to Reproduce

I can run this piece of code:

$numbers = 1..100

foreach($number in $numbers){
    write-host $number
}

with the following conditional breakpoint on the line within the loop:

$number -eq 100

And the breakpoint will hit as expected. If I change up my code to use Foreach-Object. It will no longer hit.

1..100 | ForEach-Object {
    write-host $_
}

with the following expression:

$_ -eq 5
Visuals

No response

Logs

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the conditional-breakpoint behavior in Visual Studio Code with the PowerShell extension, comparing the foreach loop with the ForEach-Object pipeline example from the issue. Trace the conditional breakpoint handling entry point and verify that $_ -eq 5 stops execution in the pipeline case without breaking the existing $number -eq 100 behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
powershell, typescript, vscode
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.