A modal page does not behave like Confirm/StrMenu inside a write
transaction: the platform refuses Page.RunModal (and Report/XmlPort
.RunModal with a request page, and Codeunit.Run with its return value
used) with a runtime error instead of holding the lock. The new article
documents that guard - verified against Microsoft Learn (Codeunit.Run
transaction semantics), microsoft/AL#5452, Microsoft's own Base
Application (Commit(); Page.RunModal pattern), and a live reproduction
on Business Central 26 quoted verbatim. avoid-user-prompts-inside-
transactions.md keeps its scope to the prompts the platform does allow;
"modal page" is removed from its list because that case is refused, not
stalled.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Use the required READ-convention Markdown links so knowledge retrieval can associate all new samples with their articles.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: dayland <dayland@microsoft.com>
Copilot-Session: 76eb42c4-2acd-4f9c-a898-f4a44f9d46f7
Move canonical knowledge for Microsoft-owned review domains into the Microsoft layer and document the skill/knowledge co-location policy.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Jesper Schulz-Wedde <jesper.schulzwedde@microsoft.com>
Copilot-Session: 2a6ea875-d38e-4f30-aadb-0d606f9be231
* knowledge(performance): align SetLoadFields placement with AL Guidelines (#120)
The AL Guidelines mark `SetLoadFields` placed before `SetRange`/`SetFilter`
as bad code and recommend filters first, while the BCQuality samples used
the opposite order — contradictory guidance across two Microsoft repos.
Per Learn (`Record.SetLoadFields`), "fields that are filtered upon are
always loaded", so the two orders produce an identical projection. The
upstream rule is a readability convention: keep `SetLoadFields` adjacent
to the read it governs.
- Reorder filters ahead of `SetLoadFields` in the six affected AL samples.
- State the placement convention in the Best Practice section.
- Record in Description that order does not change the projection, and
that only a fieldless `SetLoadFields()` or a later overwriting call does.
- Add an Anti Pattern note so review agents treat the reverse order as a
readability observation, never a performance defect.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Clarify partial-record projection changes
Document AddLoadFields, SetBaseLoadFields, and Reset alongside SetLoadFields so the statement-order guidance does not imply those APIs leave the projection unchanged.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 89dba8c8-6529-4b60-956f-875a59be499d
---------
Co-authored-by: Jesper Schulz-Wedde <jesper.schulzwedde@microsoft.com>
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 89dba8c8-6529-4b60-956f-875a59be499d
- upgrade/obsoletereason-need-not-restate-removal-version: ObsoleteTag carries the version; do not flag ObsoleteReason for omitting it (PR 8290)
- error-handling/unchecked-get-throws-when-record-not-found: a bare Rec.Get() errors on missing record; it is not silently ignored (PR 8584)
- performance/onaftergetcurrrecord-is-not-per-row: OnAfterGetCurrRecord fires on selection change, not per row; CalcFields there is not N+1 (PR 8617)
* Add precision guards for systematic agent false-positive patterns
Encodes reviewer-confirmed FP guards from the online eval: tooltip-inherited, page-trigger default return, drill-down filter not visible in diff, dual-trigger CalcFields (do.md); and a released-baseline precondition for breaking-change/upgrade findings on never-shipped symbols.
* Scope suggested-code and location to exactly the changed lines
Addresses reviewer-reported misplaced suggestions from the eval: insert-only-property emitting the whole field, single-statement rewrites anchored on the procedure name, and reductive multi-line collapses. The skill now emits a location range that matches precisely the rewritten lines.
* Correct suggested-code scoping guidance to match one-click anchor mechanics
A lone inserted line matches no existing file line and cannot be anchored; bracket the new line with one adjacent unchanged line instead. Reductive collapses omit suggested-code and fall back to a manual snippet.
* Move BC-specific FP guards out of do.md into leaf skills
do.md is the stable action-skill template and must stay domain-agnostic (JesperSchulz review). Relocate the four known false-positive patterns to their domain leaves: ToolTip-inheritance to al-ui-review; drill-down/lookup filtering and CalcFields lifecycle to al-performance-review; page-trigger exit(true) semantics to al-error-handling-review.
* Move suggested-code line-scoping guidance out of do.md into al-code-review
do.md must not carry instructions for how the review skill behaves (JesperSchulz review). Relocate the location/suggested-code precise-span rules to al-code-review's existing Suggested-code guidance section. do.md is now unchanged vs main.
* Move false-positive guards from skills into knowledge files
Keep review skills slim (finders/appliers). The FP guards and released-baseline preconditions previously embedded in leaf skills become negative-clarification knowledge articles in their domains, and the agent-findings policy edits to al-ui/al-privacy are reverted to main. Adds 6 knowledge files: error-handling (page-boolean-triggers-default-to-true), ui (bound-page-field-inherits-source-field-tooltip), performance (calcfields-in-both-getrecord-triggers-is-not-redundant, page-effective-filter-may-live-outside-the-diff), breaking-changes (unreleased-symbol-change-is-not-a-breaking-change), upgrade (unreleased-schema-change-needs-no-upgrade-path).
* Revert branch's suggested-code scoping addition in al-code-review
The three location-span shapes added to al-code-review are output-format mechanics, not domain knowledge: one-click span correctness is the engine's job (Resolve-SuggestionPlacement) and do.md already owns the suggested-code/location contract. The AL concerns the examples illustrate are already covered by existing knowledge (use-isempty-for-existence-check, data-classification-required-on-pii-fields, no-space-before-method-parenthesis). Restores al-code-review to main; the branch now adds only the 6 knowledge files.
* Restore al-ui/al-privacy review skills to base (zero diff in PR)
These two leaf skills carried an accidental net change against the PR merge-base because an earlier revert used the current origin/main (post-#110) instead of the branch base (pre-#110). Restoring them to the merge-base version removes them from the PR diff entirely. Three-way merge still preserves main's #110 suppression.
---------
Co-authored-by: wenjiefan <wenjiefan@microsoft.com>
* Complete AL review knowledge readiness
Fill telemetry and Query coverage, strengthen thin review domains, correct audited content defects, and add deterministic cheap-model evaluation and reference-integrity safeguards.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 9825b012-e653-496a-9310-c1f4b6f8ac27
* Generalize review fixture discovery
Derive smoke cases from the leaf, domain, and paired-sample conventions so new leaves require no scoring-contract changes. Keep only exceptional selection/context overrides and fail when retrieval metadata cannot rank the selected article.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 9825b012-e653-496a-9310-c1f4b6f8ac27
* Preserve published field IDs in sample
Keep the existing Email and Contact Email field IDs unchanged, clarify that the sample represents an independent baseline, and use a local breaking-change rule for the generic smoke evaluation.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 9825b012-e653-496a-9310-c1f4b6f8ac27
* Clarify published field identity rules
State explicitly that a published field keeps its ID, name, and type while a replacement is added as a separate field under an unused ID.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 9825b012-e653-496a-9310-c1f4b6f8ac27
* Align field obsoletion sample baselines
Use Email field ID 3 as the shared baseline so the bad example demonstrates a same-ID rename while the good example retains the original field and adds a separate replacement.
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot-Session: 9825b012-e653-496a-9310-c1f4b6f8ac27
---------
Co-authored-by: Jesper Schulz-Wedde <jesper.schulzwedde@microsoft.com>
Pure git-mv relocation of all 7 performance articles from community/knowledge/performance/ to microsoft/knowledge/performance/. No content changes.
Co-authored-by: Jesper Schulz-Wedde <jesper.schulzwedde@microsoft.com>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
The previous LLM-generated knowledge files contained factual
hallucinations. The most visible was the claim that `FindFirst` /
`FindLast` "forces a full-table scan" on an unfiltered record - it does
not; those APIs return a single row via the current key.
Other inaccuracies the audit found and fixed:
* `FindSet(true)` was described as "taking a LockTable". The correct
upstream phrasing is that `FindSet(true)` sets
`ReadIsolation::UpdLock` on the read. UpdLock and LockTable are
related but distinct mechanisms.
* The list of production-scale tables had been invented beyond the
upstream source (e.g. "Detailed Cust. Ledg. Entry") without a
citation. The regenerated list matches the ten tables upstream lists
with their P95 row counts.
* `SetLoadFields` guidance had been augmented with an extra mechanism
claim ("the database resolves the filter using the index without
hydrating the value") not present in upstream.
Approach: full regeneration of `microsoft/knowledge/` from the six
upstream BCApps Code Review instruction files, with Microsoft Learn /
the AL language reference as a secondary source. Every claim in every
regenerated file is anchored to a verbatim upstream quote (or a Learn
URL); the audit trail lives in artifacts/trace-<domain>.json on the
session workspace.
The PR #11 transaction/error-handling cluster is preserved verbatim:
* performance/understand-implicit-transaction-boundary.md
* performance/codeunit-run-as-atomic-sub-operation.{md,good.al,bad.al}
* performance/codeunit-run-requires-prior-commit-inside-transaction.{md,good.al,bad.al}
* performance/use-tryfunction-for-error-catching-not-rollback.{md,good.al,bad.al}
* performance/avoid-commit-inside-loops.{md,good.al,bad.al}
* security/commitbehavior-attribute-scopes-explicit-commits.{md,good.al,bad.al}
* testing/transactionmodel-attribute-governs-test-transactions.{md,good.al,bad.al}
These articles already cite Microsoft Learn and were carefully
cross-referenced; the regeneration skips their topics rather than
duplicating them.
File counts after regeneration:
performance 35 .md (5 preserved + 30 new)
privacy 17 .md
security 18 .md (1 preserved + 17 new)
style 33 .md
testing 1 .md (preserved)
ui 19 .md
upgrade 18 .md
Total 141 atomic knowledge files, each strictly one rule. All pass
.github/scripts/validate_frontmatter.py with 0 errors and 0 warnings.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Cover non-obvious platform behaviors a capable LLM reliably gets wrong:
hidden FlowFields still calculate, LockTable scopes to the whole table,
query objects bypass the primary-key cache, table-event subscribers
disable bulk ModifyAll/DeleteAll, Blob fields are uncached, OnCompanyOpen
subscribers block every session creation, and the test framework
disables bulk insert mode.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- performance/use-setloadfields-for-partial-records: Clarify that
filter-only fields (SetRange/SetFilter) do not need to be listed in
SetLoadFields — the DB resolves them via the index without hydrating
the value into AL memory.
- performance/avoid-calcfields-in-loops: Add explicit exception for
OnAfterGetRecord and OnValidate triggers, which are platform-managed
and not developer-authored loops.
- performance/split-read-only-and-write-paths-to-avoid-locktable: Add
ReadIsolation as the primary recommendation for read-only paths;
LockTable reserved for confirmed write paths only.
- performance/prefer-direct-record-over-recordref: Scope the finding to
hot unbounded loops (10k+ rows) over ledger-entry-scale tables;
RecordRef in bounded/admin/setup contexts is not a concern.
- upgrade/enum-changes-must-be-additive-at-the-end: Replace direct
ObsoleteState = Removed guidance with the two-stage workflow (Pending
first, Removed later); reference use-obsolete-pending-before-removed.
- upgrade/use-datatransfer-for-large-dataset-initialization: Add the
>300,000 records threshold as the concrete trigger for requiring
DataTransfer.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
The 35 articles still in their seed form previously carried a banner
reading "Seed article. ... Domain stewards should expand, restructure,
and refine as needed." For a community preview, that phrasing reads as
"TODO left in production" to first-time visitors.
Replace all three banner variants (performance-seeded, security-seeded,
community-ported) with a single positive invitation:
> Contributions welcome — open a PR to refine or extend this article.
Content and structure of the articles are unchanged; only the leading
quote block differs. Articles that had their banner fully stripped in
the earlier triage pass (the showcase-grade ten) are unaffected.
Adds 55 articles (plus 76 code samples) spanning four new domains and
two existing domains, extracted from the internal Business Central
review-agent prompt. Content was filtered against BCQuality's
remedial-knowledge premise: each article encodes BC-specific behaviour,
a CodeCop rule, a platform API semantic, or an anti-false-positive
guideline that a capable LLM would otherwise get wrong.
New domains:
- privacy (11 articles): DataClassification inheritance semantics, the
StrSubstNo-defeats-Error-telemetry-classification pitfall, Privacy
Notice consent for outgoing requests, anti-false-positives for pages
and in-memory data.
- upgrade (11 articles): upgrade-codeunit structure, upgrade-tag
lifecycle and registration, protected DB reads, DataTransfer for
large datasets, InitValue semantics, enum-ordinal preservation,
obsolete-workflow, first-install detection.
- ui (9 articles): caption capitalization by phrase type, tooltip voice,
teaching-tip vs tooltip, tour-tip conventions, character limits,
banned terms, ampersand handling, title punctuation.
- style (11 articles): label-suffix convention, API page naming,
temporary-variable prefix, label properties (Comment/Locked), named
invocations, FieldCaption in user messages, OptionCaption pairing,
Error-parameter passing, `this` keyword, required parentheses, file
naming.
Gaps in existing domains:
- performance (11 articles): production-scale table catalog (no row
counts, per internal-data concern), anti-false-positive for bounded
tables, guard-before-Get ordering, redundant-Get-in-OnAfterGetRecord,
LockTable in read-only helpers, combined ModifyAll passes, writes in
OnAfterGetRecord, SetLoadFields heuristics, temporary-table
regressions, FlowField source-table widening, MaintainSQLIndex
disabling SIFT.
- security (2 articles): environment-specific hardcoded GUIDs,
ValidateTableRelation=false on user input.
Intentionally excluded: specific production P95 row-count numbers
(aggregated internal telemetry); rewritten as categorical guidance on
which tables to treat as production-scale without publishing sizes.
All articles use `bc-version: [all]` (applies to every BC version, per
the new schema sentinel). Validator passes with 0 errors / 0 warnings.
Most of the corpus — FindSet/SetLoadFields/CalcFields patterns, permission
sets, SingleInstance codeunits, DataClassification, IsolatedStorage,
transaction scope, SecretText — describes BC platform behaviour that is
identical across supported versions. The seed [26..28] range on every
file implied a version-specificity the content does not actually have,
and there was no way to express "applies to every version" in the
schema the way [w1] and [all] already do for countries and
application-area.
Extend the v1 schema with a universal sentinel for bc-version, parallel
to the sentinels already defined for the other dimensions:
bc-version: [all] # applies to every BC version
[all] is mutually exclusive with explicit versions. Range shorthand
([26..28]) and explicit lists ([26, 27, 28]) continue to work for files
genuinely tied to a version-gated API or deprecation.
Update read.md (field definition, matching semantics, partial-context
rule), write.md (default to [all], use ranges only with a concrete
reason), README.md (frontmatter example), and the CI validator. All
forty existing knowledge files and the three action skills convert to
[all]; none of the current content is version-gated. Validator passes.
Remove seven knowledge files whose content is generic software-engineering
guidance that a capable LLM already applies without BCQuality present
(HTTPS-only, secret-leakage-in-errors, no-credentials-in-URLs, silent
security-error swallowing, short transaction scope, HTTP timeouts,
StrSubstNo-vs-concatenation). These fail the remedial-knowledge premise
and dilute the signal of the preview corpus.
Strip the "Seed article — domain stewards should expand" banner from ten
files that are ready to showcase (AA0232/AA0233 rules, FindSet read-only
semantics, SetLoadFields ordering and usage, CalcFields-in-loops,
SecretText end-to-end, DataClassification). The banner remains on files
that still need domain-steward refinement.
Add a "What belongs here" section to the README stating the admission
test: a file exists only if a modern LLM would get something wrong or
miss something without it. Gives contributors a concrete yes/no filter
before they open a PR.
The /samples/ top-level tree is replaced with sibling files in each
knowledge-layer folder. An article and its demonstrations now live
side-by-side:
microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.md
microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.good.al
microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.bad.al
Rationale:
- Proximity. An article and its paired samples are one unit; the
filesystem now reflects that.
- Layer ownership. Samples inherit layer precedence for free -- a
/custom/ fork can override an article and its samples atomically,
which the shared /samples/ tree previously made awkward.
- Trivial migration path. Action-skill source globs
(*/knowledge/<domain>/**/*.md) are unchanged; sample discovery is a
sibling-filename lookup.
Changes:
- git mv of all 65 sample files from samples/<domain>/<slug>/{bad,good}.al
to microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.{bad,good}.al (history preserved).
- Update See-sample references in all 37 articles that ship samples.
- skills/read.md: replace the no-code-blocks bullet with a pointer to a
new Sample files section that fully specifies the sibling convention,
the kinds (good/bad + forward-compatible), multi-technology rules,
demonstration-only status, and layer-precedence behaviour.
- skills/write.md: update the samples pointer to match.
- README.md: annotate the knowledge tree with the sample sibling shape.
- samples/README.md deleted; content lifted into skills/read.md.
- Both generators (C:\temp\gen_performance_knowledge.py,
C:\temp\gen_security_knowledge.py) updated to emit at the new paths
and to stop writing samples/README.md. Re-running them is idempotent
against the committed layout.
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Converts an existing performance-review prompt into 22 atomic
knowledge articles under microsoft/knowledge/performance/, each
paired with AL samples under samples/performance/<slug>/ demonstrating
the anti-pattern and/or the best practice. The full set seeds the
corpus the microsoft/skills/al-performance-review leaf skill matches
against and validates the READ knowledge-file format end-to-end.
Every article conforms to the READ contract: six required frontmatter
fields, Description always present, no fenced code blocks, sample
code referenced by repo-relative path. Each article is marked with a
blockquote 'Seed article' note so domain stewards can extend or
restructure them freely.
Articles (ordered by concern area):
Database query efficiency
- use-findset-with-next (AA0181)
- avoid-findfirst-with-next (AA0233)
- only-fetch-records-you-use (AA0175)
- use-findset-readonly-by-default
- use-setloadfields-for-partial-records
- use-addloadfields-in-report-layouts
- use-calcsums-to-aggregate-filtered-sets (file: use-calcsums-for-flowfield-totals.md)
- avoid-calcfields-in-loops
- add-sift-keys-for-flowfields (AA0232)
- use-isempty-for-existence-checks
Filter and key optimization
- filter-before-find
- set-current-key-to-match-filters
Temporary tables and transactions
- use-temporary-tables-for-intermediate-data
- keep-transaction-scope-short
- avoid-user-interaction-in-transactions
- avoid-commit-inside-loops
Record operations
- prefer-get-for-primary-key-lookups
- use-insert-false-when-skipping-triggers
- prefer-direct-record-over-recordref
Strings, codeunits, events
- use-strsubstno-for-message-formatting
- use-single-instance-codeunits-for-caching
- keep-event-subscribers-lightweight
samples/README.md documents the sample-folder convention and makes
clear the samples are demonstration-only, not derived from BC base
application source, with unique object IDs in the 50100-50199 range.
Rubber-duck pass caught: a misleading good.al in avoid-calcfields-in-loops
(fixed by switching to a hoistable CalcFields scenario), an invalid
event subscriber signature in keep-event-subscribers-lightweight
(fixed by adding var xRec), normative guidance leaked into the
Description of use-findset-readonly-by-default (moved to Anti Pattern),
a missing sample pair for keep-transaction-scope-short (added), and
muddy FlowField/CalcSums framing (retitled and clarified).
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
