psake is a PowerShell module and is contained in a file named psake.psm1.
There are 2 ways to run psake:
1) Import the psake.psm1 module and call the Invoke-psake function 2) Call the psake.ps1 helper script
Following is the first option:
Import-Module .\psake.psml
Invoke-psake .\default.ps1
Second option:
# call the psake.ps1 file directly
.\psake.ps1 .\default.ps1
When you call the psake.ps1 script, it forwards the parameters on to the Invoke-psake function.
The benefit of option 1 is that you can get detailed help on the Invoke-psake function:
Import-Module .\psake.psml
Get-Help Invoke-psake -full
You may also consider making a helper script for your builds so that you can configure any psake options (-framework, etc)
The following is an example helper script that configures psake to use the .NET 4.0 framework.
Import-Module (join-path $PSScriptRoot psake.psm1) -force
Invoke-psake -framework '4.0'