al-page-script

name

al-page-script

description

Guide the user to record the slice's framework-limited E2E Journey Examples in BC's Page Scripting recorder — one scenario at a time in chat, punchline-first. The user records and downloads the `.yml`; the agent replays each on a fresh container and classifies reds. Recordings are reserved for behaviour no AL test layer can automate (generation-time push-down). Prerequisite to `/al-user-verification`.

Style: Concise — cut filler, keep grammar. Opinionated — pick a side. Arrows (→) for causality. Technical terms exact, code and errors quoted verbatim.

/al-page-script — Guide the user to record a slice's bc-replay recordings

User-invoked. Reads the verify task's Verification Plan Journey Examples marked Record: yes from its file under tasks/, and guides the user — one scenario at a time, in chat, punchline first — to record each in BC's built-in Page Scripting (Preview) recorder. The user performs the gestures, validates the outcomes, downloads the .yml, and hands back the path; the agent replays each recording on a fresh container, classifies any red, and on green moves to the next scenario. Final scenario green → replay the full pre-flight batch (this slice's recordings + every prior slice's) to catch cross-file collisions, then commit.

The recorder is the generator — the agent does not author .yml. The bc-replay YAML format is reverse-engineered and undocumented; authoring it blind is a token-and-error sink, and the recorder is the intended way to produce these (Microsoft Learn, devenv-page-scripting). So the agent's job is to coach the recording and read the replay — never to write a recording from scratch. The one carve-out: a surgical, approval-gated edit to an existing recorder-produced file (bump a wait, fix one operator, add a missed Validate) when that is plainly the shortest path to green — ask, edit, replay. Everything else routes back to a guided re-record.

Layer. This is the E2E layer of the test pyramid (see test-strategy.md) — the slow, brittle apex, reserved for behaviour no lower layer can automate. A recording exists only where AL Runner / TestPage genuinely cannot assert the behaviour (control add-ins, canvas, web-client-only behaviour); /al-refine makes that call when it marks a Journey Example Record: yes (generation-time push-down — most slices get zero). Never a recording that doubles a unit or integration test. Its oracle is bc-replay's equality/visibility checks, which are oracle-limited (a recording can pass against broken code the platform absorbs), so a red here does not get faked green — see Failure classification below.

The recorder's gestures (how the user expresses No. Series, copy-value, anchored rows, validations, conditionals, Power Fx) and the recording-coaching that keeps a recording re-runnable live in references/recorder-gestures.md. The YAML format itself — read to classify a replay red or to scope a surgical edit, not to author — lives in references/bc-replay-yaml-format.md.

Preconditions

• Branch matches ^\d{3}-. If not: Stop. Verify task only exists inside an in-flight feature.
• Target task is kind: verify with status: ready-for-verification and a populated Verification Plan containing at least one Journey Example marked Record: yes. Plain ready → Stop, Next: /al-refine T-NNN. ready-for-verification with an empty plan → Stop, Next: /al-steer T-NNN; status and proof disagree. No Record: yes Journey Example (all examples are Record: no, Contract, or Exploration) → Stop, Next: /al-user-verification T-NNN; this slice needs no recording. Status blocked → Stop, Next: /al-steer T-NNN. Status done → downstream evidence exists; do not regenerate here.
• review: clean present in the verify task's frontmatter — the durable clean per-slice /al-code-review evidence. Missing → Stop, Next: /al-code-review T-NNN. Page-script is a verification pre-flight artifact, not the code-review gate.
• The slice's recordings already exist at pagescripts/recordings/<NNN>-<slug>__<slice>__NN.yml for every Record: yes example → Stop, Next: /al-user-verification T-NNN. Regeneration is a replan call (route via /al-steer); silently overwriting loses the replay-proven state the pre-flight depends on. A partial set (some scenarios recorded, some not) → resume at the first un-recorded Record: yes example.
• The recording user needs the PAGESCRIPTING - REC permission set (Microsoft Learn). The container's admin / SUPER user carries it; if a restricted user reds the recorder at start, surface the exact permission and re-enter. (PAGESCRIPTING - PLAY covers replay and already works — today's flow replays.)
• Login is the user's. The agent hands the Web Client URL and the throwaway dev credentials ready to paste: container.username / container.password from repo-root al-build.json (defaults admin / P@ssw0rd). User-authorized, non-secret. Local container hosts only (http://<container>/BC/) — never *.dynamics.com or any non-local host. User cannot reach the container URL → Stop, fix environment, re-enter.

Output path

pagescripts/recordings/<NNN>-<slug>__<slice>__NN.yml — one file per recorded scenario. Flat folder at repo root; <NNN> matches the spec folder number, <slug> the feature slug, <slice> the verify task's slice: value, NN the Journey Example's order within the slice (01, 02, …). Double-underscore between feature-slug and slice-slug, and before the scenario number. pagescript-replay.ps1's batch glob is pagescripts/recordings/*.yml; every per-scenario file joins it automatically.

The recording session

Opener, sized for a human

Announce the verify task: T-NNN id, slice slug + its event-model.md step, the count of Record: yes scenarios to record and a rough time, plus the infra wait before it — container spawn and publish run minutes, not seconds; say so, so the user isn't poised over a URL that hasn't arrived. Then spawn the recording container, publish, and hand the user the entry (URL + credentials + deep link). One scenario open at a time; the next opens only after the current scenario's .yml replays green.

Container choreography

One container exists at a time. new-agent-container.ps1 destroys and recreates the branch-named agent container from the snapshot, so every spawn is clean state. There is no second concurrent container — the re-runnability guarantee comes from spawning fresh immediately before each replay, which wipes the data the recording just created.

• Record. Spawn (new-agent-container.ps1 → publish-apps.ps1) and hand the user the URL; the user records the current scenario against whatever container is up (the one left by the prior step). Recording captures gestures, so its accumulated data does not matter.
• Replay on clean state. Once the user pastes the downloaded .yml, spawn fresh again (new-agent-container.ps1 → publish-apps.ps1) — recreating the container wipes the records the user just made — then replay (pagescript-replay.ps1 -File). That clean-state replay is the re-runnability gate: a recording that hardcoded a value or picked a row positionally reds here and gets re-recorded. (pagescript-replay.ps1 only spawns when the container is unhealthy, so the fresh spawn must precede it; the user records the next scenario on the container this replay leaves up.)
• Batch pre-flight. After the final scenario greens, spawn fresh once more and batch-replay the slice's recordings plus every prior slice's (pagescript-replay.ps1, no -File) on that clean container — catches cross-file collisions before commit.

Per scenario that is one spawn to record on (carried over from the prior replay) and one fresh spawn to replay on; each spawn runs minutes, so the opener warns the user. A slice's Record: yes set is usually one or two scenarios.

Spawn invocations (every replay is preceded by a fresh spawn + publish):

• spawn fresh container: pwsh "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../al-build/scripts/new-agent-container.ps1"
• publish all apps: pwsh "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../al-build/scripts/publish-apps.ps1"
• replay one file on the freshly-spawned container (re-runnability gate): pwsh "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../al-build/scripts/pagescript-replay.ps1" -File pagescripts/recordings/<…>__NN.yml
• batch replay (final pre-flight): pwsh "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../al-build/scripts/pagescript-replay.ps1" (no -File)

Per-scenario card

Each Record: yes Journey Example becomes one card — punchline first, then a bullet of actions and validations the user performs, then a recording-coaching tip. One card at a time; the next card only after this scenario replays green (the "exponential reveal" gate sits between scenarios; the opener already gave the total count).

Scenario 1 of 2 — A posted sales order locks its lines. Recorder on (Settings ⚙ → Page Scripting). Do these, then Save → download the .yml and paste me the path.

Do

• Open Sales Orders → New → pick a customer → add one line
• Post → Ship and Invoice

Check (right-click the control → Page Scripting → Validate)

• Status is Released
• The posted line is locked (read-only)

Recording tip: let the No. auto-assign — don't type one. (More in recorder-gestures.)

→ Download, paste me the path. I'll replay it on a fresh container.

The Do bullets are the example's Action; the Check bullets are its Observable Checks, each phrased as the recorder gesture that asserts it (right-click → Validate; copy-value → Validate is equal to clipboard entry for a captured No.). The coaching tip carries the one re-runnability rule that scenario most needs (see recorder-gestures.md) — stated before the user records, so the recording is born re-runnable rather than patched after.

Replay and seal

User pastes the downloaded path → agent spawns a fresh container (+ publish) and replays it (-File mode) on that clean state. Download mechanics: on an HTTP container the browser leaves it as Unconfirmed *.crdownload — the bytes are complete; the user copies it out and pastes the path. Read the artifacts, don't trust the exit code alone: a red writes error-context.md (an ARIA snapshot of the frozen surface — where an unexpected dialog is visible) and replay-log.yml (the failing step carries an inline error: { type, message, target }) under <cwd>/test-results/dist-player--…--chromium/ (see bc-replay-yaml-format.md §9). Green → the scenario seals; move the recorded .yml to its committed path and advance to the next card. Red → route per Failure classification.

After the final scenario greens, spawn fresh once more and run the batch pre-flight (no -File) on that clean container. Batch-green → commit every per-scenario file. Batch-red names which .yml collided → classify (typically a bad recording — the new scenario seeds a record a prior recording assumed absent; re-record it to use the No. Series so it stops colliding). If a prior .yml reds because a control it targets no longer exists — the surface legitimately moved — that is a /al-steer decision (regenerate the prior recording or quarantine it), not this skill's.

Failure classification

A replay red is a question: is the recording wrong, or is the system? The recorder emits valid YAML with real control IDs, so the old authoring-failure classes (YAML defect, un-derivable ID) are gone. Three outcomes remain.

Isolate before you debug. A red buried in a long recording masks its cause, and every full replay costs minutes. Reproduce the smallest shape that triggers it (drop timeout: low so a hang fails fast), name the cause, then act.

• Bad recording → re-record (in-loop, the default fix). The recording is brittle or wrong: it hardcoded a No. that collided on fresh replay, picked a row positionally, forgot to answer a dialog it triggered, or asserted the displayed field instead of the stored one. Diagnose in chat and coach a re-record — "sort newest-first before picking the row," "let the No. auto-assign," "Validate the posted entry, not the document line" (the re-runnability rules, recorder-gestures.md). The agent never authors the .yml. Carve-out: when the fix is a single well-understood transform on the existing recorder-produced file (bump a wait, fix one operation:, add one missed Validate), the agent may ask for approval, make that surgical edit, and replay — re-recording a 30-step scenario to add one assertion is waste, not discipline.

• Real production bug → push down, route /al-steer. The recording is valid, replays the real behaviour, and the asserted behaviour is wrong (Status flips wrong, Business Event doesn't fire, factbox doesn't refresh) — and a lower layer could pin it. Leave the verify task status unchanged and Route: /al-steer T-NNN. /al-steer opens the integration fix task and strips review: clean; /al-implement drives it red-first; this recording re-greens once the fix lands. Page-script diagnoses and routes — it does not edit production, create tasks, or flip status. (An unexpected platform dialog is this case when an AL pattern triggers it; an expected dialog the recording forgot to answer is a bad recording — re-record to answer it.)

• Oracle-blind / unscriptable → escalate, route /al-steer. The recording greens against code you know is broken — bc-replay re-reads the bound Rec exactly as a TestPage does, so its oracle is blind to that fault class (delete/quarantine; pin it where an oracle can see it; never "fix and trust the green"). Or the check asks for a judgment no assertion can encode — look-and-feel, error-message tone, accessibility. Leave status unchanged and Route: /al-steer T-NNN; /al-steer decides whether it reopens for /al-refine or becomes an Exploration Charter for /al-user-verification.

Gate event

Once when the slice's recordings land committed. Verify task status: stays ready-for-verification and keeps review: clean — the commit adds recordings, no production AL, so the per-slice review still vouches for the slice diff. Gate report — rendered box-first, passed through the pre-send checks (voice-contract.md) — names the slice (slug + event-model.md step), the count of scenarios recorded, what user surface each exercises (Page action), and next handoff /al-user-verification T-NNN. Stop shape on a routing failure (production bug or unscriptable red → status unchanged, route /al-steer) follows voice-contract.md: one stop line naming scenario / step / observed-vs-expected, state table (verify task id, scenarios recorded, scenario blocked on), next action.

Advisor checkpoint. Do a final check on the recordings as they will be committed — the batch-pre-flight-green set, not a mid-fight draft a re-record superseded. Each recording joins every future slice's pre-flight; a fragile or wrongly-asserting one multiplies false-red across the feature.

Next step

End by naming the concrete next move, read off current state:

• Batch pre-flight green, recordings committed → Next: /al-user-verification T-NNN (the verify task stays ready-for-verification with review: clean).
• Production-bug or oracle-blind/unscriptable red → status unchanged, Next: /al-steer T-NNN (routing per Failure classification).
• Bad recording → re-record in-loop (no handoff); resume at the failing scenario.

If state can't be read, fall back to /al-user-verification T-NNN.

Composition

Invoked by	user. Suggested by /al-refine (after writing a Verification Plan with Record: yes examples and no recordings yet) or /al-code-review per-slice on a re-review (verify task already ready-for-verification, plan intact); /al-steer (state-read routing on a review: clean verify task with un-recorded Record: yes examples)
Runs after	/al-refine filled the Verification Plan and marked the framework-limited examples Record: yes; /al-code-review per-slice stamped review: clean at slice-done (preserved through refine)
Hands off to	/al-user-verification on green (every Record: yes scenario recorded + batch pre-flight green). /al-steer on a production-bug or unscriptable red, status unchanged (routing per Failure classification).
Uses	new-agent-container.ps1 (fresh spawn before each replay; one container at a time), publish-apps.ps1, pagescript-replay.ps1 (-File per-scenario, batch pre-commit), BC's Page Scripting recorder driven by the user, Web Client deep links + al-build.json credentials (the user's entry), references/recorder-gestures.md (recording coaching), references/bc-replay-yaml-format.md (read a red / scope a surgical edit), ../../references/test-specification.md (Verification Plan grammar + Record: flag), ../../references/test-strategy.md (layer + push-down frame)
Replan venue	/al-steer — both reds route here, status unchanged. Production-bug: /al-steer opens the integration fix task and strips review: clean; /al-implement lands the fix red-first, then the slice owes a re-review (/al-code-review) before sign-off. Unscriptable: /al-steer reopens for /al-refine or converts the example to an Exploration Charter for /al-user-verification.
Sidebands	/al-research (BC surface behaviour an example asserts), /grill-me (intent on an example step the user must adjudicate)

Running a recording

Replay needs Node ≥22 on PATH (@microsoft/bc-replay bundles @playwright/test). Any Node source works — MSI, Volta, nvm — the script uses whatever node resolves to; no version manager required. Node 26 is known-good for the replay run, but a fresh playwright install browser-download may hang on 26+ (upstream microsoft/playwright#40724), so keep Playwright browsers cached. On first run, pagescript-replay.ps1 writes a minimal pagescripts/package.json (only if absent) and installs @microsoft/bc-replay. The script encapsulates spawn-then-replay (-File <path> single-file, no flag for batch); it handles app publish, npm install, and the replay invocation. The full option surface and failure-reading detail live in references/bc-replay-yaml-format.md §9.

Out of scope

• Authoring .yml from scratch. The recorder is the generator; the agent coaches and replays. The only write the agent makes is a surgical, approval-gated edit to an existing recorder-produced file (above).
• Writing the examples themselves. Journey Examples live in the verify task's Verification Plan, written by /al-refine, which also marks Record: yes / Record: no. This skill records the Record: yes set only.
• Walking the non-recorded scenarios. Record: no Journey Examples, Contract Examples, and Exploration Charters belong to /al-user-verification.
• Copilot run-prompt. SaaS-tenant feature (gated by Features.RunPrompt); not runnable in a container.