Currently, accessing the Linux command line utilities that are considered essential in many CI/CD development environments on Windows requires a kludge that involves either opening an emulation such as Git Bash, or a virtualized Windows Linux Subsystem (WSL) terminal.
Both are time-consuming and inefficient. As Microsoft’s announcement puts it: “Developers constantly move between platforms, but familiar commands don’t work consistently, forcing workarounds, lost speed and context switching.”
Coreutils removes the need for this back and forth, allowing developers to run most Linux commands straight from the Windows CMD command prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Terminal.
“Whether you’re moving between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers or cloud environments, the commands and workflows you’ve built over years just work in your Windows environment,” Microsoft said.