AL Companion
Navigate and explore Microsoft AL / Business Central packages right inside VS Code.
Features
⚡ Automatic Package Loading
AL Companion automatically loads your dependency packages when you open an AL project (any workspace containing an app.json). It respects:
- The
al.packageCachePath workspace setting — uses your custom cache directory if configured, otherwise falls back to .alpackages
- Your
app.json dependency list — only loads packages you actually depend on (plus the Microsoft platform packages: System, System Application, Base Application, Application)
- Version constraints — when multiple versions of a package exist in the cache, the highest version satisfying your minimum requirement is selected
🔍 Search Event Subscribers
Quickly find all event subscribers across all loaded packages and your local project files using a guided 3-step Quick Pick:
- Publisher object — pick the object that publishes the event (e.g.
Codeunit "Sales-Post")
- Event name — pick the event (e.g.
OnBeforePostDocument)
- Element (optional) — filter by field or action name for table/page events
After selecting a subscriber from the results list:
- Local
.al files — the file opens directly and VS Code jumps to the subscriber function
- Package
.app files — the AL source is extracted from the package and opened as a read-only document with full AL syntax highlighting, with the cursor placed at the subscriber function
⚡ Quick Search (Local Files)
Instantly navigate to any AL symbol in your local workspace using a single fuzzy Quick Pick. Open it with the AL Companion: Quick Search command and start typing — there is no separate "go to file" vs. "go to symbol" step.
You can combine any of the following tokens in any order, separated by spaces:
| What you type |
What it matches |
| Part of an object, field, or procedure name |
Names and captions of objects, fields, actions, enum values, and procedures/triggers |
An object type keyword (e.g. codeunit, page, table) |
Filters results to that object type |
A numeric ID (e.g. 50100) |
Matches objects or fields by their numeric ID |
trigger or procedure |
Narrows results to triggers or developer procedures |
Any element kind (field, action, column, enumvalue) |
Filters to that element kind |
Every token must match — results are ranked by a per-token score so the best matches appear at the top. Selecting a result opens the .al file and places the cursor at the matching symbol.
Results are built once per package-reload and cached, so repeated searches are near-instant.
Commands
| Command |
Description |
AL Companion: Reload Packages |
Re-scan package cache directories and reload all packages |
AL Companion: Search Event Subscriber |
Open the guided event subscriber search |
AL Companion: Quick Search |
Open the fuzzy quick search over all local AL symbols |
Extension Settings
| Setting |
Type |
Default |
Description |
al-companion.debugLogging |
boolean |
false |
Enable verbose debug logging to the AL Companion output channel |
Requirements
- VS Code 1.109.0 or later
- An AL project with an
app.json file (Microsoft AL extension not required)
Known Issues
Please report issues on GitHub.
Release Notes
See CHANGELOG.md for the full history.
Logo
The logo has been generated with Google Nano Banana 2
