The PowerShell Podcast From Flow State to Agent State with Adam Driscoll
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Adam Driscoll, creator of PowerShell Universal, returns to the show for a deep dive into how AI has reshaped his day to day work. Since selling PSU to Devolutions last October, Adam has gone from writing thousands of lines of code himself to running a fleet of coding agents through GitHub Copilot, working across the PSU codebase, documentation, and Jira tickets. He and Andrew talk candidly about the personal side of that shift, the strange mix of mourning your old flow state while also getting more done than ever. From there the conversation turns practical, covering how Adam builds guardrails around agents using PowerShell modules and MCP servers, why planning in smaller steps beats one shotting a huge feature, and why Pester testing has quietly become non negotiable. They wrap with a PowerShell Universal 2026.3 update, including a redesigned admin console, new AI chat and MCP guardrail features, and Devolutions Agent support for running PSU jobs, plus a fun detour into Adam’s side projects: a fully managed SQLite engine called Ahtola and an accidental 20,000 line Unity game.
Key Takeaways:
- Treat your AI coding agent like a junior developer. It needs the “why” behind a task, not just the “what,” or it will fill in the gaps with assumptions you don’t want.
- Guardrails matter more as agents get more capable. Adam constrains what his agents can touch by routing them through well defined PowerShell functions and MCP tools rather than giving them free rein, and tool approval settings let IT admins do the same in more sensitive environments.
- Break big builds into small, reviewable steps instead of writing a massive plan and letting the agent run wild with it. Smaller steps mean you can actually review what changed at each stage.
Guest Bio:
Adam Driscoll is the creator of PowerShell Universal and joined Devolutions in October 2025, where he now leads its continued development. He’s a longtime fixture in the PowerShell community, known for his tooling work and prolific output.
Resource Links:
About the Author
Andrew Pla
PowerShell MVP, podcast host, and Community Director of PowerShell Summit
I’m a technical educator and community builder. I’m a Microsoft PowerShell MVP, podcast host, speaker, and Community Director of PowerShell Summit. I also work at PDQ alongside sysadmins and IT pros every day.
Community isn’t just what I do. It’s where I get my energy. I genuinely light up when I see someone land a new job, level up a skill, or show up to their first conference. I love sharing that passion with others.
Every week I host a live podcast and stream on YouTube covering PowerShell, automation, and the humans behind the keyboards.
If you’re on your IT journey and need someone in your corner, you’re in the right place. Find more at andrewpla.tech/links.