| 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
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.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.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.
