Summary of the new feature / enhancement

Note:

• This would not be a breaking change, because Stop-Computer and Restart-Computer are currently broken altogether on macOS - see Stop-Computer: broken on macOS; suboptimal UX on all Unix-like platforms #19738

• I do not know enough about Linux distros to tell if a distinction analogous to the one below is even possible or necessary there. Perhaps the answers here provide clues.

A fix for #19738 is being worked on in #19780, and it will delegate to /sbin/shutdown -h now (shutdown) and /sbin/shutdown -r now (reboot) on macOS.

However, these commands amount to a forced shutdown: they do not afford GUI applications enough time to shut down gracefully, such as browsers and VM software, inducing potential data loss.

Therefore, I propose the following:

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

By default, use the following commands on macOS - they do shut down gracefully, but - as on Windows - do not guarantee a shutdown, if an app refuses to quit:

• Shutdown:
  • osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to shut down'
• Reboot:
  • osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to restart'

Use /sbin/shutdown ONLY if -Force is specified.

• Shutdown:
  • /sbin/shutdown -h now
• Reboot:
  • /sbin/shutdown -r now

Note that the "graceful" commands do not require sudo, i.e. administrative privileges, whereas /sbin/shutdown always does.