OnlyCopilotFans Business Central Agentic Dev Framework — Setup

Get from a bare VS Code to a working OnlyCopilotFans (OCPF) BC Agentic Development Framework setup in a few clicks — built for Business Central functional consultants who have never done development, and just as handy for developers.

A live HTML dashboard for every project

The framework ships a Build Map dashboard — one self-contained HTML page, ProjectDashboard.html at the root of your project, tracked in git so it travels with the project — that tracks your build from its first minutes. It opens once in your default browser and then keeps itself fresh after every agent turn, with no model call and no tokens spent. At a glance it shows:

• your app's name and icon, and which phase and step the build is on (on Build-a-Feature, one row per object instead of steps);
• tokens or AI credits and cost so far, in total and per step, against the AI effort estimate;
• how the elapsed time splits between the agent's work, your work, and waiting on an answer from you;
• which models are working in which roles, and the current step's exit gate;
• when the agent is waiting on you, the open question and where to answer it.

ProjectProgress.md stays the written record; the dashboard is a live view of it. To reopen it after closing the tab, right-click ProjectDashboard.html in the Explorer → Open Externally, or ask the agent to "open the dashboard" (/ocpf-bc:dashboard). An F1-themed twin, ProjectDashboard-f1.html, is rendered beside it for anyone who asks for it.

What the framework gives you

Three journeys, one standard — the choice is about the kind of work, not a file count:

• Full — a complete app or solution built end to end, or a major overhaul of a big existing app: the detailed requirements review, FRD, TDD, documentation, testing guides, and automated tests, on three AI models. At least three to four hours; still far less than a development team.
• Lite — updating an existing app, or a new app without a large footprint, on one model with fewer steps and leaner documents. One to two hours.
• Build-a-Feature — quick, tactical customizations in minutes: a table and its pages, a field on a page, a processing report, an API, a role center. Not vibe-coding — the same standards and analyzers govern every file — but lean on documentation; ideal for a PoC or a prototype.

Every journey asks its questions in options boxes, measures tokens and cost at every step, keeps a live dashboard, and packages the app for you to upload. Starting from an existing app nobody can explain? /ocpf-bc:analyze documents it first. No icon? The agent draws one to the standard and asks you to accept it.

What installing this extension does

• Installs the AL toolchain: the AL Language extension plus a pack of proven companions — Claude Code, GitHub Copilot Chat, Insert GUID, AL Code Outline, Markdown Preview Enhanced, Rainbow CSV. Every pack member is individually removable, and installing an agent extension needs no subscription.
• Opens a first-run walkthrough that wires your AI agent of choice and checks your machine is ready.

The extension ships no framework content — it is the on-ramp, not the framework. The framework lives in its own public repository and is versioned independently, so this extension never needs an update when the framework releases.

You never have to update anything by hand. Three things could go stale and each takes care of itself: VS Code updates this extension; /ocpf-bc:start always fetches the latest framework into a new project (and /ocpf-bc:update-framework offers it to an existing one); and this extension keeps the ocpf-bc plugin current — it turns on Claude Code's own auto-update for the framework's marketplace, and on every VS Code start it also repairs Claude Code's marketplace cache if it has gone stale, compares the installed plugin with the latest on GitHub, offers Update now when there is a newer one, and updates the Copilot CLI's copy when that CLI is on the machine. Copilot Chat's copy updates with VS Code's own extension updates.

How to use it, step by step

1. Install this extension. The AL toolchain and both agent extensions come with it.
2. Follow the walkthrough (it opens automatically; or run Help: Open Walkthrough → Set up the OCPF BC Framework):
   • Check Git — first, because Claude Code and GitHub Copilot install the ocpf-bc plugin with Git and the framework fetches its artifacts with it. If Git is missing you get an Install Git button that runs the right installer for your OS in a terminal you can watch. Nothing installs silently. After the install, quit and reopen VS Code completely (not Reload Window) so the new Git is visible.
   • Choose your AI agent — Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or both. This wires the chosen agent to the framework's plugin marketplace and installs the ocpf-bc plugin (you confirm each step in-product). Uninstall the agent you don't use, if you like.
3. Start a project with one of the commands below.
4. Hand off to the agent: in your agent's chat panel, run

   /ocpf-bc:start
   

   The agent helps you choose the journey, fetches the framework's runbook, standards guide, and templates into your project, and takes it from there: plain-language requirement in, tested AL extension out. The better your requirements, the faster the first stage goes: put them in a requirements/ folder (.md recommended; Word, PDF, and images work too) and an app icon in images/. The framework's own documentation — the user guide, every command, and the release notes — lives in its repository.

Commands (Command Palette, category "OCPF BC")

Agent plugin commands (/ocpf-bc:)

Once setup is done, the framework is driven from your AI agent's chat with these commands — the extension gets you ready, the agent does the work. The framework repository is the authoritative reference; a fuller user guide ships with the extension (docs/USER_GUIDE.md in the install folder).

Troubleshooting

I installed Git, but VS Code still says it's missing. VS Code only picks up newly installed programs at startup. After installing Git — whether from the extension's prompt or from git-scm.com — quit and reopen VS Code completely (File → Exit on Windows, Code → Quit on macOS, not Reload Window; if you started VS Code from a terminal, open a new terminal first), then run OCPF BC: Check Git Installation again. On Windows the extension tells these two cases apart: when Git is in its install folder but not yet on this window's PATH, it says to restart, not to install again. winget saying "Found an existing package already installed" means the same thing: Git is there, the window just can't see it yet.

Git asks who you are (or commits fail with an identity error). Git needs your name and email once per machine. Open the terminal in VS Code (Terminal → New Terminal) — or Command Prompt on Windows — and run these two commands, with your own details in the quotes:

git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Your Name"

You only ever do this once; every project on the machine uses it from then on.

My AL files show red squiggly underlines, but the code compiles and the agent says there are no errors. The AL language service occasionally gets out of sync with the code on disk. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P, or Cmd+Shift+P on Mac), type Developer: Reload Window, and press Enter. The window reloads in a couple of seconds and the squiggles disappear.

Claude Code doesn't show a command or journey the framework's documentation mentions (for example /ocpf-bc:start offering only Full and Lite). Your ocpf-bc plugin is behind. Run OCPF BC: Update the ocpf-bc Plugin from the Command Palette and click Update now, then start a new Claude Code session. If it tells you to update inside Claude Code, type /plugin there, pick ocpf-bc, choose Update. The extension also runs this check on every VS Code start and turns on Claude Code's auto-update for the framework's marketplace, so after the first time it takes care of itself.

Something else? Report it on the framework's issues page — include what you clicked and what you saw.

License

PolyForm Shield 1.0.0. You may use, copy, modify, and redistribute this extension for any purpose except providing a product that competes with it or with any product of the licensor. See LICENSE for the full terms.

Required Notice: Copyright AnsariCo, Inc. dba OnlyCopilotFans (https://OnlyCopilotFans.com) and OnlyBCFans (https://OnlyBCFans.com)

Requirements

• VS Code 1.96 or later
• Git (the extension checks and helps you install it)
• A Claude or GitHub Copilot subscription for the agent you choose to use (installing the extensions is free)

Created by AJ Ansari · Microsoft MVP · Extension 0.0.18 · documents framework 6.0.0.0 / plugin 6.0.0 (November 2026)