bcquality/custom/knowledge/architecture/development-requires-bc-task.md

bc-version	domain	keywords	technologies	countries	application-area
all	architecture	bc-task task-registration customer-app pte appsource lifecycle before-development	al	w1	all

Development requires a registered BC task

Description

Development work on a customer app must not begin until the task is registered in Business Central. The enforcement point is branch creation: before a feature branch is created, the BC task must exist and be resolvable via BC MCP.

Whether an app is a customer app is decided by its object ID ranges in app.json:

idRanges in app.json	App type	BC task
Within 50000–99999	Customer app (PTE)	Mandatory before development
Outside 50000–99999 (e.g. 100000+)	AppSource app	Recommended, optional

Why

Customer-app work is billable, customer-facing work. A task that exists only in a chat conversation or a developer's head cannot be traced, invoiced, or picked up by anyone else. Registering the task in BC before development — not after — is what makes the rest of the lifecycle chain work: branch naming, dev-status sync, and commit traceability all key off the BC task.

For AppSource apps the work is product investment, not customer billing, so the task is optional — but the same chain applies whenever a task exists.

Decision point

Before git checkout -b feature/... on a customer app:

1. Resolve the task via BC MCP (see [[bc-mcp-find-active-task-for-branch]])
2. No task found → create it first (see bc-mcp.agent.md create-task workflow) or have the project manager register it
3. Only then create the branch, named after the task, and sync status (see [[git-lifecycle-must-sync-bc-status]])

Anti Pattern

# Customer app, idRanges 50000..99999
git checkout -b feature/quick-price-fix     # no BC task exists
# ...development starts, task registered "later" (= never, or wrong)

Best Practice

# 1. BC MCP: task exists (or is created) → taskNo 004 on DEV2023-00027
# 2. Branch keyed to the task:
git checkout -b feature/DEV2023-00027-004-price-lookup
# 3. BC: gitHubDevStatus = "In Progress"
# 4. Commits prefixed [#taskId] (see commit-message-must-include-bc-task-id)

Scope

All CURABIS repositories. Mandatory for apps whose app.json idRanges lie within 50000–99999; optional but recommended for AppSource-range apps. Related: [[commit-message-must-include-bc-task-id]], [[one-task-in-progress-at-a-time]].