Navigating Repos Faster with PowerShell

April 27, 2026•

powershellproductivityterminalworkflow

Navigating Repos Faster with PowerShell

I have a lot of repos, and they're organized into groups. cd-ing into them every time was getting old, especially since they are not located on my C: drive. so I wrote two PowerShell functions that let me navigate to any repo with arrow keys and Enter.

The Result

Type repos in your terminal. A menu appears. Arrow up/down to pick a group, hit Enter. Another menu for the repo. Hit Enter again. You're there.

BASH

Select group:

  > FaithBranch
    Personal
    School

The Code

Drop these in your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE).

POWERSHELL

function Invoke-Menu {
    param([string[]]$Items, [string]$Prompt = "Select:")
    $selected = 0
    while ($true) {
        Clear-Host
        Write-Host "$Prompt`n" -ForegroundColor Cyan
        for ($i = 0; $i -lt $Items.Count; $i++) {
            if ($i -eq $selected) {
                Write-Host "  > $($Items[$i])" -ForegroundColor Yellow
            } else {
                Write-Host "    $($Items[$i])"
            }
        }
        $key = $Host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
        switch ($key.VirtualKeyCode) {
            38 { if ($selected -gt 0) { $selected-- } }                      # Up
            40 { if ($selected -lt $Items.Count - 1) { $selected++ } }       # Down
            13 { return $Items[$selected] }                                   # Enter
            27 { return $null }                                               # Escape
        }
    }
}

function repos {
    $root = "E:/repos"

    # Layer 1: top-level folders
    $layer1 = Get-ChildItem -Path $root -Directory | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name
    $choice1 = Invoke-Menu -Items $layer1 -Prompt "Select group:"
    if (-not $choice1) { Clear-Host; return }

    # Layer 2: sub-folders
    $layer2Path = Join-Path $root $choice1
    $layer2 = Get-ChildItem -Path $layer2Path -Directory | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name
    $choice2 = Invoke-Menu -Items $layer2 -Prompt "Select repo:"
    if (-not $choice2) { Clear-Host; return }

    $finalPath = Join-Path $layer2Path $choice2
    Clear-Host
    Set-Location $finalPath
    Write-Host "-> $finalPath" -ForegroundColor Green
}

How It Works

Invoke-Menu is a reusable interactive menu. It reads raw key input with no Enter needed to move the cursor. Virtual key codes 38 and 40 are arrow up/down. 13 is Enter, 27 is Escape. It clears and redraws the screen on every keypress, highlighting the selected item in yellow.

repos calls Invoke-Menu twice, once for the top-level group folder, once for the repo inside it. Then Set-Location to move you to the correct spot.

Setup

Open your profile: notepad $PROFILE
Paste both functions
Update $root to match your repos directory
Save and reload: . $PROFILE

Escape at any point cancels out cleanly. Add more layers if your structure goes deeper.

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Get in Touch

(330) 993-0174 sneiswanger@faithbranch.com