AL Productivity Pack

A suite of productivity tools for Business Central AL developers

Why This Extension?

Every Business Central developer knows the pain:

• 🔍 "Which event do I subscribe to?" — Digging through base app source to find the right integration event
• 📋 Copy-paste nightmares — Getting the subscriber signature wrong because of a typo in object names or parameter lists
• 🔗 "Who else subscribes to this?" — No easy way to see all subscribers across your codebase
• 💀 Silent failures — Dead subscribers pointing to events that no longer exist after a BC upgrade

AL Productivity Pack solves all of this — directly inside VS Code.

Features

🔍 Event Subscriber Finder

Search and discover all published events across your workspace — including the Base Application symbols.

Command: ALP: Find Published Events

• Instantly search by event name, object name, or parameters
• Navigate directly to the event definition
• Supports IntegrationEvent, BusinessEvent, and InternalEvent types

🗺️ Subscriber Mapper

See all event subscribers in your codebase and what they're listening to.

Command: AL: Find Event Subscribers

• View all [EventSubscriber] procedures mapped to their targets
• Quick-navigate to any subscriber
• Understand cross-extension dependencies at a glance

⚡ Boilerplate Generator

Generate correct subscriber code with one click — no more typos.

Command: AL: Generate Event Subscriber Boilerplate

• Select any event → get a ready-to-use subscriber procedure
• Correct ObjectType, object name, event name, and full parameter signature
• Inserts as a VS Code snippet with tab stops for customization

Example output:

[EventSubscriber(ObjectType::Codeunit, Codeunit::"Sales-Post", 'OnBeforePostSalesDoc', '', false, false)]
local procedure OnBeforePostSalesDoc(var SalesHeader: Record "Sales Header"; CommitIsSuppressed: Boolean)
begin
    // TODO: Implement subscriber logic
end;

🔗 Event Chain Visualization

Understand the full event flow within any object — see all events fired in execution order.

Command: AL: Show Event Chain

• Pick an object → see all its published events in sequence
• Visual flow diagram in a side panel
• Helps choose the right hook point (OnBefore vs OnAfter vs OnRun)

💀 Dead Subscriber Detection

Find subscribers in your code that point to events which no longer exist.

Command: AL: Detect Dead Subscribers

• Scans all [EventSubscriber] procedures
• Flags any whose target event can't be found in the index
• Prevents runtime errors after BC version upgrades
• Navigate directly to problematic code

🌳 AL Events Explorer (Tree View)

A dedicated tree view in the Activity Bar showing all events grouped by object.

• Grouped by object type and name
• Click to navigate to event source
• Tooltip with full event details
• Auto-refreshes on file changes

🔀 Cross-Extension Dependency Explorer

Track how your apps depend on each other across a multi-app workspace.

• See which projects extend your tables, pages, enums, and codeunits
• Track field references and Record variable usage across projects
• Detect cross-project dependencies instantly
• Tree view in the Activity Bar with full drill-down

📦 App Dependency Graph (Deploy Sequence)

Visualize the deployment order for all your apps.

Command: ALP: Show App Dependency Graph

• Numbered deploy sequence — exact order to publish
• Clickable items — jump directly to each app's app.json
• Parallel deploy detection (apps with no interdependency)
• External dependencies grouped by publisher (Microsoft, Lanham, EOS, etc.)
• Scans workspace + sibling project folders automatically

📄 File Insights

One-click summary of the current AL file — right from the editor title bar.

Command: ALP: File Insights

• Objects, events, subscribers, fields, extensions, and cross-references in the file
• Quick navigation to any item
• Editor title button (icon) for instant access

🎬 Page Script Generator

Convert human-readable repro steps into BC Page Scripting YAML — ready to run in Business Central's test automation.

Command: ALP: Generate Page Script from Repro Steps

• Write steps in natural DSL: Open, Click, Set, Confirm, Choose, Validate, Wait
• Quotes optional on field names — Set Name = "Value" works just like Set "Name" = "Value"
• Intelligent field resolution from AL page sources (workspace + .alpackages)
• QuickPick field selector when mapping is needed — browse all fields on the page
• Handles Confirm/Choose dialogs with correct automationIds
• Subpage/lines input with proper part → page → repeater path
• Output saved to .page-scripts/ directory

DSL Example:

Open "Purchase Order List"
Click "New"
Set Buy-from Vendor Name = "10000"
In "PurchLines" Set No. = "1000"
In "PurchLines" Set Quantity = "1"
Click "Release"
Click "Post"
Choose 2
Confirm "Yes"

Running in Business Central:

☁️ Dataverse Integration Generator

Generate complete Dataverse integration boilerplate — coupling codeunit, list page, and page extension — from a guided wizard.

Command: ALP: Generate Dataverse Integration Boilerplate

• Single-screen wizard: pick a Dataverse entity, target BC table, and base object ID
• Live entity lookup from your Dataverse environment (OAuth2 Device Code Flow)
• Token caching — authenticate once per session, reuse silently
• Runs altpgen.exe under the hood to generate the CDS table definition
• Parses the generated table to extract real field names, IDs, and primary keys
• Auto-detects the target page from the BC table's LookupPageId / CardPageId properties
• Professional field mapping webview with:
  • Dropdown-based BC → Dataverse column pairing
  • Smart auto-match (name similarity) pre-populated
  • Per-field direction toggle (↔ Bidirectional, → To DV, ← From DV)
  • Search/filter, stats bar, Clear All / Auto-Match buttons
• Generates:
  • Coupling Codeunit — full Match(), UpdateOne() logic with correct field mappings
  • List Page — Dataverse entity list with coupling actions
  • Page Extension — Coupled indicator & sync action on the detected card/list page

Prerequisites:

• AL Language extension installed (provides altpgen.exe)
• Microsoft Entra app registration with public client flow enabled
• Dataverse environment URL + Client ID configured in settings

Wizard & Entity Selection:

Field Mapping & Code Generation:

🤖 AI Telemetry Agent

Intelligently instruments your AL code with Microsoft-recommended FeatureTelemetry calls — powered by Copilot's language model.

Command: ALP: Add Telemetry (AI)

• Scope choice — analyze the active file or scan the entire project
• Auto-detects feature names from AL object declarations (no manual input needed)
• Smart classification — reads each procedure's code to decide what telemetry is appropriate
• Specific event names — generates descriptions like "Item UOM inserted", not generic "Records processed"
• CustomDimensions — always includes relevant context (record IDs, key fields, counts)
• Inline preview — proposed lines highlighted green in the editor; browse freely before deciding
• Accept / Discard — persistent status bar buttons; nothing is saved until you explicitly accept
• Handles case...of blocks, nested begin/end, and proper procedure boundary detection
• Follows Microsoft guidelines: FeatureTelemetry.LogUsage, LogError (only in existing error paths), LogUptake

🖱️ Right-Click Context Menus

• Peek Subscribers at Cursor — right-click any event to see all subscribers
• Peek Cross-References at Cursor — right-click any AL symbol to find who uses it
• Generate Subscriber for Event — right-click an event to scaffold a subscriber

Installation

From VS Code Marketplace

1. Open VS Code
2. Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
3. Search for "AL Productivity Pack"
4. Click Install

From VSIX (Manual)

code --install-extension al-productivity-pack-0.2.0.vsix

Configuration

Example settings.json

{
  "alProductivityPack.searchPaths": [
    "/path/to/shared/al-symbols"
  ],
  "alProductivityPack.includeBaseApp": true,
  "alProductivityPack.autoRefresh": true
}

Commands

How It Works

1. Indexing — On activation (or manual refresh), the extension scans all .al files in your workspace and .alpackages folder
2. Parsing — Regex-based parser extracts [IntegrationEvent], [BusinessEvent], [InternalEvent] publishers and [EventSubscriber] attributes
3. Mapping — Events and subscribers are cross-referenced to build a complete dependency graph
4. Querying — Commands provide instant search, navigation, and code generation from the index

Roadmap

• [x] v0.1 — Event Subscriber Finder, CodeLens, Dependency Explorer, App Dependency Graph
• [x] v0.2 — Page Script Generator (DSL → BC Page Scripting YAML)
• [x] v0.3 — Dataverse Integration Generator (wizard, field mapping, code generation)
• [x] v0.4 — AI Telemetry Agent (project-wide analysis, inline preview, accept/discard)
• [ ] v0.5 — AL Test Helper tools
• [ ] v0.6 — Object ID conflict detection across extensions
• [ ] v1.0 — Stable release with full feature set

See the CHANGELOG for release history.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

• 🐛 Report a bug
• 💡 Request a feature
• 🔧 Submit a PR

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85.0 or higher
• Works best alongside the official AL Language extension

License

MIT © Rishabh Shukla

Made with ❤️ for the Business Central community