Business Central Build Tasks for Azure DevOps

• Overview
• Features
• Installation
• Other Requirements
  • Azure AD App Registration
  • Business Central Configuration
  • Setup Complete
• Tasks Included
  • 1. Get AL Compiler (EGGetALCompiler)
  • 2. Get AL Dependencies (EGGetALDependencies)
  • 3. Build AL Package (EGALBuildPackage)
  • 4. Get List of Companies (EGGetBCCompanies)
  • 5. Get List of Extensions (EGGetBCModules)
  • 6. Publish Extension to Business Central (EGDeployBCModule)
• Example Pipeline
• Security & Trust
• Support

Overview

2025-06-10 Version 0.1.8: NO LONGER WINDOWS ONLY!

Proud to announce that this extension is NO LONGER Windows agent dependent!!!

This Azure DevOps extension provides build pipeline tasks for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central AL projects. It enables full pipeline-based compilation, dependency acquisition, and VSIX compiler management using custom tasks.

This extension is usable on both Ubuntu and Windows based agents

Features

• Platform Independent

  • Operates on both Ubuntu and Windows agents

• ✅ Get AL Compiler

  • Downloads the latest version of the Business Central AL compiler from the Visual Studio Marketplace
  • Extracts and sets pipeline variables for reuse

• ✅ Get AL Dependencies

  • Retrieves extension dependencies from app.json
  • Optionally adds default platform dependencies

• ✅ Build AL Package

  • Compiles .app files using alc.exe
  • Fully configurable path and output control

Installation

1. Go to your Azure DevOps organization.
2. Navigate to Organization Settings > Extensions.
3. Install the shared extension: BCBuildTasks from Evergrowth.
4. Tasks will become available in the Build category within pipeline designer.

Other Requirements

Azure AD App Registration

An application registration must be made in Azure Entra. Go to https://portal.azure.com and go to Microsoft Entra ID (or on older Azure Portals, Azure Active Directory). Select App registrations from the menu:

Next, go to "New Registration" at the top of the window:

Provide a username that will make sense in your Entra environment. This user does not require a redirect or any other information. This should be a single tenant account as it should not be available anyplace else:

Once you've saved that, you will be taken to the registration's screen:

References:

1. this is the ClientId used in this extension, or the application id.
2. this is the TenantId used in this extension; it is your tenant id.
3. click on the blue link here to set up a client secret. In that window select the "Client secrets" tab, and select "New client secret" (image shown as #1 in screenshot AFTER the one below.)

The settings are up to the user. The name is informational only and not used by the pipeline. The length of time is likewise up to the user. Save that, and the key will appear on the next screen:

References:

1. the "Client secrets" tab referred to above
2. the "New client secret" button referred to above
3. when a client secret is set up, it will appear here. This is ClientSecret. MAKE SURE you copy this to a secure location. This is the only time you will be able to do so.

Once finished on this screen, go to "API permissions" in the menu on the left:

Click on "Add a permission":

Find the Business Central API tile and click it:

Select "Application permissions" from the two options presented, and select the following permissions (minimum required):

The minimum required types for permission are "app_access" (to be able to authenticate) and "API.ReadWrite.All" (to be able to get the package references, download packages, etc.) When finished press "Add permissions" to go back to the main screen:

If the area highlighted in the screenshot show the exclamation mark (as shown) the administrator must grant admin consent by pressing the button at the arrow. This will open a confirmation screen:

When this is complete, there should be green checkmarks in the status column:

Business Central Configuration

A user must be set up in Business Central to allow the pipeline agent to communicate with it. Select the magnifying glass and search on "Entra":

Select "Microsoft Entra Applications" to come to this screen and select "New":

Fill in the client id (from Entra) and provide a descriptive name:

References:

1. This is the ClientId field, the one from the Entra registration; copy-paste it into this field to ensure accuracy.
2. A human-readable label—shown in BC when authenticating extensions via service-to-service (S2S) apps.
3. This is the contact information for the account.
4. before you move to the next step you must set this to "enabled".

Once done, the bottom portion will be active:

You want to provide this user with the out-of-the-box permission set EXTEN. MGT. - ADMIN. This is the minimum required to use this pipeline extension.

Setup Complete

Tasks Included

1. Get AL Compiler (EGGetALCompiler)

Notes:

If not using the alVersion variable from above, the system places the expanded archive in the $(DownloadDirectory)\expanded\extension\bin folder. (Technically it then goes one level lower, to the win32 folder or the linux folder.)

2. Get AL Dependencies (EGGetALDependencies)

3. Build AL Package (EGALBuildPackage)

4. Get List of Companies (EGGetBCCompanies)

5. Get List of Extensions (EGGetBCModules)

6. Publish Extension to Business Central (EGDeployBCModule)

This function is still somewhat experimental.

This function is intended to publish a compiled extension (.app file) to a Business Central tenant, and wait for a response. In its current form it has been demonstrated to create the extension upload and successfully call the publish routine (effectively code complete), however there are many external circumstances that may cause this step to fail.

Overall, the flow of operations is:

1. Create an upload bookmark in the API
2. Upload the actual .app file
3. Call a specific routine in the API
4. Call the extension deployment status API until success

There is not much more control that is provided and even the response codes from the API do not provide enough information to determine problems, diagnose issues or troubleshoot.

Example Pipeline

- task: EGGetALCompiler@0
  displayName: "Get AL compiler"
  inputs:
   DownloadDirectory: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)\compiler
   Version: 'latest'
   ExpansionDirectory: 'expanded'

- task: EGGetALDependencies@0
  displayName: "Get AL dependencies"
  inputs:
   ClientId: "<your client id>"
   ClientSecret: "<your client secret>"
   EnvironmentName: '<your environment name>'
   PathToAppJson: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)\CodeModule
   PathToPackagesDirectory: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)\.alpackages
   TenantId: "<your tenant id>"

- task: EGBuildALPackage@0
  displayName: "Compile AL package"
  inputs:
    ALEXEPathFolder: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)/compiler/expanded/extension/bin/win32/alc.exe
    EntireAppName: "TestApp.1.1.1.app"
    OutAppFolder: $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)
    PackageCachePath: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)\.alpackages
    ProjectPath: $(Build.SourcesDirectory)\CodeModule

- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  displayName: "Publish artifact"
  inputs:
    ArtifactName: "drop"
    PathtoPublish: $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)

- task: EGDeployBCModule@0
  displayName: "Deploy module to Business Central"
  inputs:
    TenantId: "<target tenant id>"
    EnvironmentName: "<target environment name>"
    ClientId: "<target-capable client id>"
    ClientSecret: "<target-capable client secret>"
    CompanyId: "<company id>"
    AppFilePath: "$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)\\TestApp.1.1.1.app"

- task: EGGetBCCompanies@0
  displayName: "Getting list of companies"
  inputs:
    TenantId: "<target tenant id>"
    EnvironmentName: "<target environment name>"
    ClientId: "<target-capable client id>"
    ClientSecret: "<target-capable client secret>"

- task: EGGetBCModules@0
  displayName: "Getting list of modules installed"
  inputs:
    TenantId: "<target tenant id>"
    EnvironmentName: "<target environment name>"
    ClientId: "<target-capable client id>"
    ClientSecret: "<target-capable client secret>"
    CompanyId: "<company id>"

Common Failures

Here are some common failures and their likely causes:

Security & Trust

These tasks are designed for internal use and are provided under the Evergrowth publisher namespace. All task logic is exposed via wrapper scripts for transparency and audit. Source code is available on GitHub.

For production-grade installations, we recommend isolating usage to dedicated agents, applying RBAC at the pipeline level, and integrating with secure secret management (e.g., Azure Key Vault, or Azure Pipelines Library --> Variable Groups (Secrets)). We do not recommend checking in the ClientSecret into your repository.

Support

If you encounter any issues or require assistance, contact:

Evergrowth Consulting

Please open a GitHub issue at https://github.com/crazycga/bcdevopsextension/issues for queries or support.

License

Provided under the MIT License.