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GenXdev.Data.Preferences

Overview

GenXdev.Data.Preferences provides a tiered preference system: a session-scoped global variable for temporary overrides, and persistent JSON-based key-value stores for durable storage with support for synchronization over Onedrive.

What It Offers

Command Aliases What it does
Set-GenXdevPreference setPreference Store a preference value persistently
Get-GenXdevPreference getPreference Retrieve a preference value
Set-GenXdevDefaultPreference setPreferenceDefault Set a default value, used when no explicit preference exists
Remove-GenXdevPreference removePreference Delete a preference
Get-GenXdevPreferenceNames getPreferenceNames List all known preference names
Get-GenXdevPreferencesDatabasePath — Get the filesystem path to the preferences database
Set-GenXdevPreferencesDatabasePath — Change where the preferences database lives

How It All Comes Together

When you run Set-AILLMSettings to configure an LLM provider, it stores the settings as preferences. When Open-Webbrowser needs to know which monitor to use, it reads DefaultSecondaryMonitor from preferences. When Confirm-InstallationConsent asks if you want to auto-install tools, the answer is persisted as a preference.

Get-GenXdevPreference looks up values through a five-tier fallback, reading from disk at each persistent tier (nothing is held in memory between lookups):

  1. Session variable — a global PowerShell variable set by a previous Set-GenXdevPreference in this session, or explicitly via -SessionOnly
  2. Local preferences — GenXdev.PowerShell.Preferences JSON store
  3. Local defaults — GenXdev.PowerShell.Defaults JSON store
  4. OneDrive defaults — OneDrive\GenXdev\Defaults_Preferences.json
  5. Hardcoded fallback — the -DefaultValue parameter or the module's built-in default

If the exact (lowercased) key isn't found, it does a second pass with case-insensitive scanning across all tiers before falling back.

Set-GenXdevPreference writes to local preferences and the session variable. Set-GenXdevDefaultPreference writes to local defaults and the session variable, but only if no existing value is found — so modules can ship with sensible defaults that users can override.

Cross-Machine Sharing via OneDrive

Preferences can be shared across machines through OneDrive, but it's opt-in per write — nothing syncs unless you explicitly ask for it.

The lookup on read always checks the five tiers listed above in order. So if a preference was written to OneDrive from another machine (and OneDrive has synced the file), it gets picked up automatically during reads.

To write a preference to OneDrive, use -AllMachines:

Set-GenXdevPreference -Name "Theme" -Value "Dark" -AllMachines
Set-GenXdevDefaultPreference -Name "Theme" -Value "Dark" -AllMachines

Both cmdlets write to OneDrive\GenXdev\Defaults_Preferences.json when -AllMachines is specified. Without that switch, preferences stay local. On another machine signed into the same OneDrive account, the synced file is read as tier 4 of the lookup chain. If OneDrive isn't available, the write silently falls back to local-only.

Preferences are also used by GenXdev.Coding's refactoring engine (refactor definitions are stored as JSON preferences), GenXdev.Console's monitor configuration, and GenXdev.Software's installation consent tracking.

See Also