PR Summary

Add PSOptimizedProviderObjects, an experimental feature that avoids allocating provider note properties until they are needed.

FileSystem items and scalar Get-Content strings/bytes store metadata inline in PSObject<TMetadata>. Property reads use compiled getters; member inspection or mutation materializes ordinary PSNoteProperty objects. Content outputs share cached paths and keep their own ReadCount. Batches, byte arrays, and other providers use the existing path.

Enable-ExperimentalFeature PSOptimizedProviderObjects
# Restart PowerShell.

One behavior change: lazy FileSystem path properties follow the underlying object's current path after a move. Once materialized, they become snapshots. Drive/provider context, Unix stat, and content paths retain their captured values.

Performance

Measures of Get-ChildItem | ... for different scenarios with different usage of the PS* provider properties.

Master is 100% (dashed line); lower is better. Left: elapsed time. Right: allocated bytes per item.

• Emission: 55.4% less time, 67.3% fewer allocated bytes.
• One PSPath read per item: 52.3% less time, 58.2% fewer allocated bytes.
• Ten reads: 51.6% less time, but 14.1% more allocated bytes, as path strings are recomputed.
• Formatting and Select-Object * show little improvement.

Measured on an i9-13900K with fast disks. Your mileage may vary.

Tests and docs

Adds xUnit and Pester coverage for lazy reads, mutation, binding, copying, serialization, object lifetime, content metadata, and feature-on/off behavior. Includes a process-isolated benchmark harness and an engine design guide at docs/building/provider-instance-metadata.md.

PR Checklist

• PR has a meaningful title
  • Use the present tense and imperative mood when describing your changes
• Summarized changes
• Make sure all .h, .cpp, .cs, .ps1 and .psm1 files have the correct copyright header
• This PR is ready to merge. If this PR is a work in progress, please open this as a Draft Pull Request and mark it as Ready to Review when it is ready to merge.
• Breaking changes
  • None
  • OR
  • Experimental feature(s) needed
    • Experimental feature name(s): PSOptimizedProviderObjects
• User-facing changes
  • Not Applicable
  • OR
  • Documentation needed
    • Issue filed:
• Testing - New and feature
  • N/A or can only be tested interactively
  • OR
  • Make sure you've added a new test if existing tests do not effectively test the code changed