nu: Offer an optional Windows Terminal profile helper

[maphew]

Package

nu

Current behavior

The manifest installs Nushell and creates a helper for registering bundled plugins, but Windows Terminal does not discover Nushell automatically. Users must create and maintain a profile themselves.

Proposed change

Have post_install generate an opt-in PowerShell helper alongside nu.exe, following the existing core-plugin helper pattern. Running the helper would:

• add or update a Nushell profile as a per-user Windows Terminal JSON fragment;
• write the fragment under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Terminal\Fragments\Nushell using UTF-8;
• point the profile at the stable Scoop nu.exe shim rather than a versioned install directory;
• support removing the generated fragment;
• leave Windows Terminal's settings.json untouched.

The manifest's notes would show the command to run. Installation and upgrades would not alter Terminal configuration unless the user explicitly invokes the helper. Re-running it would update the same fragment rather than create duplicates.

Windows Terminal documents JSON fragments as the supported installer integration for applications installed from the web:
https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/terminal/json-fragment-extensions

Would this opt-in helper be acceptable in Main? If approved, I can prepare and test the manifest change on stable, preview, and unpackaged Windows Terminal installations where available.

[maphew]

Draft prototype and sample

These are draft artifacts intended only to show the idea and implementation approach. They are not the final manifest change. The helper's interface, generated filename, error handling, and how it is embedded into post_install may change after maintainer feedback.

Both files are available together here:

https://gist.github.com/maphew/b424201cf003a8998ce8c7fafad434ad

• nu.windows-terminal-profile.prototype.ps1 demonstrates opt-in add/update and removal.
• nu.windows-terminal-profile.sample.json shows the resulting fragment shape for a default Scoop installation.

The prototype:

• resolves the current Nushell installation with scoop prefix nu, so it does not assume Scoop is under %USERPROFILE%\scoop;
• writes %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Terminal\Fragments\Nushell\nu.json atomically as UTF-8 without a BOM;
• uses a deterministic fragment profile GUID;
• omits font, colorScheme, and startingDirectory, allowing the user's profiles.defaults values to apply;
• points icon at nu.exe. Nushell 0.115.0 has an extractable embedded icon, and current Windows Terminal supports icons from executables;
• can remove the fragment with -Remove;
• can be rerun without creating duplicate profiles.

The add/update/remove path was tested against an isolated temporary fragment directory, including JSON parsing and encoding checks. It has not been installed into a real Terminal configuration.

[z-Fng]

#8169 (comment)

Main bucket discourages elaborate pre/post-install scripts, as they go beyond Scoop's scope and are difficult to maintain.

I'm wondering if we could provide this script from the upstream Nushell side instead. They have a much better understanding of the plugin count and rules than we do.

Personally, I believe Scoop should not be responsible for maintaining these external integration scripts.

Instead, please consider opening an issue or pull request upstream to see if they would be willing to provide these platform-specific helper scripts directly. If upstream provides them, we can simply document instructions or examples in the manifest's notes. Ideally, even the existing temporary workarounds (such as the core-plugin helpers #8169) should be handled upstream rather than inside the Scoop manifest.

Closing this issue for now. If other maintainers have different thoughts, feel free to reopen it.

[maphew]

That redirect makes sense, thanks. I will follow-up with Nutshell upstream.