bcdev - Business Central Development CLI

A CLI tool for Business Central developers and their agents. Compile, publish, and test AL applications from any platform (macOS, Linux, Windows). Works the same against BC SaaS sandboxes, hosted dev environments like Alpaca or your own local containers - no need for BCContainerHelper or remote powershell on the BC server.

Running Tests

bcdev test \
  -launchJsonPath "/path/to/.vscode/launch.json" \
  -launchJsonName "Your Config Name" \
  -Username "bcuser" \
  -Password "bcpassword" \
  -CodeunitId 50100 \
  -MethodName "TestSalesOrderCreation"

Compiling an App

bcdev compile \
  -appJsonPath "/path/to/app.json"

# With compiler options
bcdev compile \
  -appJsonPath "/path/to/app.json" \
  -parallel \
  -maxDegreeOfParallelism 4

Publishing an App

bcdev publish \
  -appPath "/path/to/MyApp.app" \
  -launchJsonPath "/path/to/.vscode/launch.json" \
  -launchJsonName "Your Config Name" \
  -Username "bcuser" \
  -Password "bcpassword"

Downloading Symbols

NuGet mode (default):

# Download symbols from NuGet feeds (no BC server required)
bcdev symbols -appJsonPath "/path/to/app.json"

# With country-specific packages (e.g., US, DE, DK)
bcdev symbols -appJsonPath "/path/to/app.json" -country us

Server mode (opt-in):

bcdev symbols \
  -appJsonPath "/path/to/app.json" \
  -fromServer \
  -launchJsonPath "/path/to/.vscode/launch.json" \
  -launchJsonName "Your Config Name" \
  -Username "bcuser" \
  -Password "bcpassword"

Commands

bcdev compile

Compile an AL application.

Option	Required	Description
-appJsonPath	Yes	Path to app.json file
-packageCachePath	No	Path to .alpackages folder
-suppressWarnings	No	Suppress compiler warnings from output
-generateReportLayout	No	Generate report layout files
-parallel	No	Enable parallel compilation
-maxDegreeOfParallelism	No	Max concurrent compilation tasks
-continueBuildOnError	No	Continue building even if errors found

bcdev publish

Publish an AL application to Business Central.

Option	Required	Description
-appPath	Yes	Path to .app file
-launchJsonPath	Yes	Path to launch.json
-launchJsonName	Yes	Configuration name
-Username	Yes*	Username
-Password	Yes*	Password

*Required for UserPassword auth

bcdev test

Run tests against Business Central.

Option	Required	Description
-launchJsonPath	Yes	Path to launch.json
-launchJsonName	Yes	Configuration name
-Username	Yes*	Username
-Password	Yes*	Password
-CodeunitId	No	Specific test codeunit ID
-MethodName	No	Specific test method name
-testSuite	No	Test suite name (default: DEFAULT)
-timeout	No	Timeout in minutes (default: 30)

bcdev symbols

Download symbol packages for compilation dependencies. By default, downloads from Microsoft's public NuGet feeds (faster, works offline/CI). Optionally download from a BC server with -fromServer.

Option	Required	Description
-appJsonPath	Yes	Path to app.json file
-packageCachePath	No	Output folder (defaults to .alpackages next to app.json)
-country	No	Country code for localized symbols (e.g., us, de, dk). Default w1 uses country-less packages
-fromServer	No	Download from BC server instead of NuGet feeds
-launchJsonPath	No*	Path to launch.json
-launchJsonName	No*	Configuration name
-Username	No**	Username
-Password	No**	Password

*Required with -fromServer **Required for UserPassword auth with -fromServer