Programmatically adding vdir and app using appcmd in IIS?

I am trying to use IIS's appcmd to programatically do the equivalent of the following in the IIS Manager application (inetmgr.exe):

1. In the Connections sidebar on the left, expand to HOSTNAME -> Sites
2. Right-click Default Web Site and click Add application... from the context menu.
3. The Add Application dialog will display
   1. In the Alias: textbox type path1/path2
   2. In the Physical Path: textbox type C:\path1\path2
   3. Click OK
4. This will cause the app to be displayed in the Connections left sidebar under the path HOSTNAME -> Sites -> Default Web Site -> path1 -> path 2
5. Restarting IIS will cause http://[::1]/path1/path2 to display the application, assuming it's bound to just [::1].

Here is what I have so far to do this programmatically:

# Copy my web.config file for my new site.
copy C:\test\web.config C:\path1\path2\web.config

C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd add app /site.name:"Default Web Site" /path:path1\path2

C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd vdir /app.name:"Default Web Site/path1/path2" /path:/ /physicalPath:C:\path1\path2

But after restarting IIS, it never displays in the Connections left sidebar and I can't get to my application either.

However, I can list it using appcmd:

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd list app
...
APP "Default Web Site/windows/gp" (applicationPool:DefaultAppPool)
...

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd list vdir
...
VDIR "Default Web Site/windows/gp/" (physicalPath:C:\path1\path2)
...

What else do I have to do? There's /commit command in appcmd but I don't understand what it does apart from editing an xml .config on the fly at some level...where are my changes?