bc-al-testing

name	bc-al-testing
description	Run AL tests against a Business Central dev endpoint with the bc-dev-mcp tools — discover test codeunits, run them with structured per-method results, optionally collect code coverage. Use when asked to run, re-run, or triage AL tests on a BC server.

Running AL tests against Business Central

Workflow

1. bcdev_status — preflight. Confirms the dev endpoint is reachable, credentials work, and supportsTestRunning is true (requires dev API WebApiVersion >= 7.0, i.e. BC28+). Call this first whenever anything else fails.
2. bcdev_test_discover — pure filesystem scan of the AL project for test codeunits (Subtype = Test) and their [Test] methods. No server involved. Use the returned codeunitId values in the next step.
3. bcdev_test_run { codeunits: [{ id: <codeunitId> }] } — runs on the server, returns per-method passed | failed | skipped with duration and failure output (message + AL callstack). Restrict with methods: ["Name"]; pick the company with company.

Facts that save you time

• One run at a time. A second bcdev_test_run while one is active fails with "already running" — wait and retry.
• Coverage: pass coverage: "procedure" (validated against real BC). "line" is unproven — do not trust it without independent verification. Covered procedures map back to local source files when the object IDs exist in the project.
• Tests run in codeunit declaration order, not the order of your methods array.
• Synthetic results: the run summary can contain an extra entry with an empty method name (a server-side quirk, e.g. after watch evaluations). Ignore entries with an empty method.
• The tests must already be published to the server (publish via the dev endpoint or VS Code AL extension); this server runs tests, it does not publish apps.
• Connection defaults come from the project's .vscode/launch.json; credentials from BC_DEV_USER / BC_DEV_PASSWORD. Auth failures name the env vars to check.

Debugging a failing test

Switch to the bc-al-debugging skill (skill://bc-al-debugging/SKILL.md): attach the debugger with break-on-error, run the same codeunit via bcdev_debug_run_tests, and inspect live state at the failure line.