bcquality/microsoft/skills/review/al-ui-review.md
Michael Dieringer f63943dcfd
18 more AL/BC patterns: data-modeling, testing, style, security, error-handling, ui, upgrade, web-services, appsource (#157)
* Add 18 more community AL/BC patterns across appsource, data-modeling, error-handling, security, style, testing, ui, upgrade, and web-services

Second contribution from CURABIS ApS, generalized from patterns observed across real AppSource/PTE development. Cross-checked against the current microsoft/knowledge corpus before opening; several originally-drafted candidates were dropped as duplicates of existing files.

* Address Jesper Schulz-Wedde's review on PR #157

- release-must-update-app-version.md: reframe around AppSource's actual
  strict full-version-ordering requirement; scope branching-policy
  claims as team convention, not platform rule.
- pictures-must-use-media-not-blob.md: MediaSet is a collection of
  independent media objects, not automatic image variants/thumbnails.
- log-writes-must-survive-rollback.{md,good.al}: StartSession's only
  data channel into the new session is its Record parameter to a
  TableNo-scoped codeunit; a setter called on a local instance before
  starting the session populates nothing in the new session.
- exposed-objects-must-be-in-a-permission-set.md: correct the three
  exposure mechanisms (Web Services config, PageType/QueryType=API,
  ServiceEnabled as a method-only attribute).
- pages-must-not-contain-business-logic.md: scope to persisted
  mutations and cross-entry-point rules; presentation-only
  calculations and table-owned invariants are not violations.
- given-blocks-must-cover-full-precondition-chain.good.al: replace
  invented LibrarySales calls with the real API
  (CreateCustomer/CreateSalesOrderForCustomerNo/PostSalesDocument).
- test-feature-scenario-tags.{md,good.al}: move [SCENARIO] inside the
  test procedure body to match the current BCApps corpus; keep
  [FEATURE] at codeunit level per Microsoft's own documented option.
- ui-test-codeunit-naming.md: scope the _UT suffix and adjacent-ID
  pairing as an explicit team convention, not a BCApps-wide standard.
- page-design-must-match-bc-page-type-conventions.md /
  table-design-must-match-bc-table-type-conventions.md: Card's
  single-key primary-key claim is a contextual heuristic, not a
  mandatory constraint (Ship-to Address, Customer/Vendor Bank Account
  are real composite-key Card pages); a Subsidiary table with its own
  identity commonly gets List+Card, not Worksheet/Tabular.
- api-page-least-privilege-write-access.{md,good.al}: only page-placed
  fields are ever exposed; set InsertAllowed/DeleteAllowed=false in the
  good sample so a narrow field set can't still create/delete records.
- source-organized-by-feature-not-object-type.md,
  test-one-when-per-test.md: scope as team/testing-design conventions,
  not Microsoft platform requirements.
- upgrade-tag-logic-must-not-nest-deeply.md: add the Microsoft Learn
  citation that already backs the two-level nesting limit.
- Wire the new articles into the testing/data-modeling/error-handling/
  security/ui review skills' candidate-selection signals.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Address second round of Jesper Schulz-Wedde's review on PR #157

- log-writes-must-survive-rollback.good.al: fixed invalid trigger
  OnRun(var Rec: ...) declaration; Rec is implicit when TableNo is set.
- exposed-objects-must-be-in-a-permission-set.md: distinguished the three
  exposure mechanisms (page/query web service or API, codeunit published
  as a web service, [ServiceEnabled] bound action on a page) and their
  actual permission targets (page/query "..." = X vs codeunit "..." = X).
- code-must-not-change-workdate.md: scoped from an absolute "never" to
  "not as a side effect of unrelated logic" - verified real WorkDate(x)
  setter usage in BCApps demo-data generators and test codeunits.
- bcpt-scenarios-must-be-app-specific.md: SingleInstance and
  StartScenario/EndScenario reframed as context-dependent patterns, not
  mandatory requirements - BCPT Create Customer uses neither.
- test-feature-scenario-tags.good.al/.bad.al: replaced the invented
  LibrarySales.CreateCustomerWithPrice/"Item Price Mgt." calls with a real,
  verified price-list-line test using Library - Sales/Library - Inventory/
  Library - Price Calculation.
- page-design-must-match-bc-page-type-conventions.md: scoped the missing
  UsageCategory anti-pattern to pages intended as searchable entry points.
- defensive-vs-offensive-code-must-match-blast-radius.md/.good.al/.bad.al:
  replaced the VAT registration number "low blast radius" example with a
  genuinely cosmetic field (customer home page URL).
- source-organized-by-feature-not-object-type.md: anti-pattern reframed as
  inconsistency with a repo's own convention, not the object-type scheme
  itself.
- pictures-must-use-media-not-blob.md: removed leftover "image variants"
  wording contradicting the already-corrected MediaSet description.

Proactively fixed while sweeping all fixtures for invented APIs:
- given-blocks-must-cover-full-precondition-chain.bad.al: PostSalesOrder
  called with wrong arity and referenced an undeclared variable.
- ui-test-codeunit-naming.good.al/.bad.al: replaced the same fake
  "Item Price Mgt."/TestPage "Item Price" with real Library - Sales calls
  and the real Customer Card TestPage.

Worklist completeness: added review-skill cues for the 12 of 18 new rules
that had none (al-appsource-review.md, al-data-modeling-review.md,
al-error-handling-review.md, al-security-review.md, al-style-review.md x3,
al-testing-review.md x2, al-ui-review.md, al-upgrade-review.md,
al-web-services-review.md), and fixed test-feature-scenario-tags' cue,
which only matched the compliant (tagged) shape instead of the anti-pattern
(untagged/generic-named test).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Fix ten focused correctness items plus sample links from Jesper's 2026-09-15 re-review

Six carried-over threads:
- api-page-least-privilege-write-access fixtures: added the mandatory
  EntityName/EntitySetName properties (AL0485).
- pages-must-not-contain-business-logic fixtures: Sales Line has no
  "Total Amount" field; replaced with the real "Line Amount" (field 103).
- test-feature-scenario-tags.good.al and test-one-when-per-test.good.al:
  CreatePriceHeader leaves a price list in Draft status, which price
  calculation ignores. Added Validate(Status, Active) + Modify before the
  sales line that depends on it. Verified Status field/enum against
  PriceListHeader.Table.al and PriceStatus.Enum.al in the BCApps clone.
- exposed-objects-must-be-in-a-permission-set.md: a published codeunit is
  a SOAP endpoint (SOAP is deprecated), not OData - Page/Query are the
  OData object types. Corrected and pointed new integrations at API
  pages/queries instead.
- al-error-handling-review.md: the log-writes-must-survive-rollback cue
  selected on Session.StartSession, which only appears in the compliant
  fix, never in the anti-pattern - the bad fixture could never be
  worklisted. Recued on the actual risk shape (log insert around a
  failed TryFunction/GetLastError* path, then raise/propagate), with
  StartSession as an explicit compliant discriminator instead.
- page-design-must-match-bc-page-type-conventions.md: the enum value is
  NavigatePage, not Navigate; noted the type list is a selected subset,
  not an exhaustive PageType catalogue (PromptDialog, ConfigurationDialog,
  UserControlHost, XmlPort also exist, out of this article's scope).

Four new correctness gaps:
- release-must-update-app-version.md: "the version is the only identity"
  was backwards - id is the app's stable identity, version identifies a
  release/code-state of it.
- defensive-vs-offensive-code-must-match-blast-radius.good.al: the "low
  blast radius" example had no else branch, so a failed Customer.Get()
  left the field at its prior/default value instead of the explicit
  chosen fallback the article claims to demonstrate. Added the else.
- bcpt-scenarios-must-be-app-specific.good.al: InitTest and both measured
  StartScenario/EndScenario sections were empty/comment-only, so the
  "app-specific" fixture measured no actual work. Filled in a real,
  self-contained header+line creation path.
- upgrade-tag-logic-must-not-nest-deeply.good.al: the flattened version
  dropped both safety conditions the bad fixture had (Discount % = 0,
  nonblank posting group), silently changing behavior instead of just
  removing nesting. Extracted the guarded update into a helper with both
  conditions preserved as early exits.

Also converted this PR's remaining plain-backtick "See sample:" sample
references (16 articles) to the READ-convention markdown-link form,
matching the fix already made on #156/#158.

Rebased onto upstream/main (conflicts in al-ui-review.md, al-style-review.md,
al-upgrade-review.md against merged upstream PRs - all additive, both
sides' worklist cues retained).

* Fix four merge-critical issues from Jesper's 2026-09-22 review

- pages-must-not-contain-business-logic.good.al/.bad.al: the "good"
  codeunit still directly assigned real Sales Line."Line Amount" and
  called Modify(), bypassing the field's normal Validate cascade
  (discount, VAT, related-amount maintenance) - persisting inconsistent
  document lines regardless of which object the code lived in. Replaced
  the real Sales Line example with a self-contained "Sample Order Line"
  table and switched the codeunit to Validate()/Modify(true), so the
  fixture demonstrates the page-vs-codeunit separation without teaching
  unsafe direct field writes to a real BC document table.
- bcpt-scenarios-must-be-app-specific.good.al: Customer.FindFirst()
  assumed a pre-existing customer (fails against an empty environment),
  and a session-local NextNo counter for the header key collides across
  concurrent BCPT sessions and repeated runs. Creates its own customer
  when none exists, and generates keys from CreateGuid() instead of an
  in-memory counter.
- upgrade-tag-logic-must-not-nest-deeply: the rule conflated two
  different things - nesting one tag's existence check inside another
  (the real anti-pattern Microsoft's guidance warns against) with
  having business-data safety conditions inside a single tagged
  migration's own loop body (which Microsoft's own worked example does,
  and its own design guidance explicitly requires: "Implement extra
  safety checks to avoid data corruption, even though you're using
  upgrade tags"). Rewrote the Description/Best Practice/Anti Pattern to
  scope the rule to actual tag nesting and migrations blended under one
  tag, and rewrote both fixtures: good.al now shows two safety
  conditions correctly nested inside one migration's own loop plus a
  second, genuinely separate migration as its own flat tagged
  procedure; bad.al now shows the real anti-pattern, one tag's check
  nested inside another's guarded body.
- table-design-must-match-bc-table-type-conventions: the rule and its
  worklist cue fired on any new table with a keys block, forcing
  buffers, queues, logs, mapping tables, and staging tables into the
  nearest-looking one of nine business-record archetypes. Added an
  explicit scope note that these nine types aren't an exhaustive table
  catalogue, and narrowed the al-data-modeling-review.md cue to require
  positive evidence (a type-specific naming suffix, key shape, or
  usage) before worklisting, instead of a bare keys/primary-key
  declaration.

* Narrow upgrade-tag nesting cue to match revised article

Cue now flags only nested upgrade-tag checks or functionally unrelated
migrations under one tag, and explicitly excludes record loops and
business-data safety guards belonging to a single migration.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: Jesper Schulz-Wedde <jesper.schulzwedde@microsoft.com>
Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-09-29 17:12:51 +02:00

11 KiB

kind id version title description inputs outputs bc-version technologies countries application-area
action-skill al-ui-review 1 AL UI and accessibility review Reviews AL page and control add-in UI files against UI text, caption, tooltip, and accessibility guidance from BCQuality.
pr-diff
file-path
folder-path
findings-report
all
al
javascript
w1
all

AL UI and accessibility review

Reviews AL page source and control add-in UI files against the ui knowledge domain in BCQuality and emits a findings report. This is a leaf action skill: it invokes no sub-skills. It is one of the skills composed by al-code-review.

UI findings apply to page files — files that declare PageType = ..., including *.Page.al under the standard file-naming convention — and to JavaScript/CSS/HTML files that implement Business Central control add-ins, including their client-service communication. The skill returns not-applicable when the diff contains no page or control add-in changes.

An orchestrator invokes this skill with a pr-diff, file-path, or folder-path. The skill produces a single JSON document conforming to the DO output contract.

Source

Use READ's Bounded retrieval for review skills workflow with -Domain ui. Consume every catalog page across enabled layers before applying this leaf's Relevance and Worklist; preserve each exact catalog path and open complete bodies only for exact paths selected by the Worklist. If the helper or prepared index is unavailable or invalid, use READ's explicit path-discovery and bounded native-read fallback.

Relevance

Apply the frontmatter matching rules defined in READ against the task context:

  • bc-version — the target BC version from the PR branch's app.json or the orchestrator-supplied version. If unavailable, the dimension is unknown.
  • technologies — [al] or [javascript].
  • countries — the countries declared in the consuming app's app.json. If absent, unknown.
  • application-area — pass the actual set declared by the changed objects; do not substitute [all].

Discard files that are not applicable. Retain conditionally applicable files only when the orchestrator's configuration permits them; findings derived from those files MUST have confidence no higher than medium and MUST name the unknown dimensions in message.

Worklist

Narrow the relevant files to the subset that applies to the changes under review.

  • UI-file filter. UI review applies to files declaring page, pageextension, or pagecustomization, and to JavaScript/CSS/HTML that implements a control add-in's rendering or Business Central communication. When the diff contains no such files, return outcome: "not-applicable" without evaluating knowledge files.
  • A new or changed page's name/suffix, primary-key handling, CardPageID, SubPageLink, AutoSplitKey, or UsageCategory doesn't match the conventions of its own declared PageType — page-design-must-match-bc-page-type-conventions.md. A Card page over a composite-key table that supplements a master record, or a supporting/subpage/dialog page intended only to be reached through another workflow and correctly omitting UsageCategory, is not this anti-pattern on its own; check whether the page is actually mixing conventions or is meant as a searchable entry point before flagging.
  • For each relevant knowledge file, compute overlap against changed page declarations and control add-in files, weighted toward Caption, ToolTip, AboutTitle, AboutText, OptionCaption, ShowCaption, InstructionalText, GridLayout, Style, StyleExpr, promoted action definitions, field importance, page background tasks, DOM creation, ARIA attributes, keyboard/focus handlers, packaged-resource AJAX, and calls from JavaScript into AL.
  • Tokens extracted from the diff (Caption, ToolTip, AboutTitle, AboutText, PageType, ShowCaption, InstructionalText, grid, fixed, GridLayout, Style, StyleExpr, Importance, Promoted, Additional, area(Promoted), actionref, PromotedCategory, PromotedOnly, PromotedIsBig, ShowAs, SplitButton, fieldgroups, DropDown, UpdatePropagation, EnqueueBackgroundTask, OnAfterGetCurrRecord, OnAfterGetRecord, OnPageBackgroundTaskCompleted, OnPageBackgroundTaskError, RunPageBackgroundTask, Favorable, Unfavorable, Ambiguous, cuegroup, controladdin, control-add-in, usercontrol, aria-, tabindex, keydown, focus, innerHTML, createElement, packaged-resource, ajax, $.get, $.ajax, XMLHttpRequest, xhrFields, withCredentials, withcredentials, InvokeExtensibilityMethod, invokeextensibilitymethod, skipIfBusy, successCallback, success-callback, errorCallback, setInterval, JSON.stringify, payload, throttling, reduced-functionality, ClientServicesMaxUploadSize, &, Specifies, Message(, Confirm(, Error( in a page context, Disabled, Invalid, Whitelist, Blacklist, trailing punctuation patterns on captions, CardPageID, AutoSplitKey, PageType = Card, PageType = List, PageType = Worksheet, PageType = Document).

A file enters the candidate worklist when its keywords intersect the extracted tokens or its topic (derived from the index entry's path, title, and description) matches a changed page element. Read an article's full file — its ## Best Practice / ## Anti Pattern bodies — only after it makes the worklist; candidate selection uses the index alone.

Apply these high-signal mappings before fuzzy topic ranking:

  • A tableextension adds a field to DropDown while the corresponding lookup-page control remains Visible = false — dropdown-fieldgroup-respects-lookup-page-visibility.
  • An editable page part affects a total, FlowField, or FactBox on the parent but does not set UpdatePropagation = Both — updatepropagation-both-refreshes-main-page.

Once the candidate worklist is known, resolve layer-precedence conflicts per READ and record suppressions.

When the post-conflict worklist is empty because no applicable UI knowledge exists, or because configuration suppressed every candidate, emit outcome: "no-knowledge". When the worklist is empty because no applicable UI knowledge matched the page changes, emit outcome: "completed" with an empty findings array.

Action

For each worklist entry, evaluate the diff against the file's ## Best Practice and ## Anti Pattern sections. UI text findings are generally minor — they affect localization and polish rather than correctness. Accessibility findings for missing labels, broken grid semantics, semantic color without text meaning, or UI-rendering control add-in changes can be major; use minor for low-risk manual-review reminders and polish issues.

For packaged-resource requests, flag $.get or AJAX/XHR that omits withCredentials only when the URL is identifiable as a resource in the control add-in package; do not generalize the rule to external endpoints. For InvokeExtensibilityMethod, flag repeated or timer-driven calls that can overlap because they do not wait for the success/error callbacks, and unbounded serialized payloads sent in one call. Prefer bounded chunks serialized through completion callbacks. Do not emit generic browser or JavaScript performance advice.

Set confidence to:

  • high when the detection is based on an unambiguous pattern match (banned term literal, missing "Specifies" opener on a field tooltip, caption exceeding documented limit).
  • medium when detection relies on heuristics (judging whether a caption is a noun phrase or a sentence phrase) or when any frontmatter dimension was unknown.
  • low when the finding is an advisory derived only from applicability.

This leaf emits only knowledge-backed UI and accessibility findings. Do NOT emit reference-less agent: findings in this domain: online evaluation shows the UI/accessibility agent-finding channel yields almost no accepted findings and a high volume of dismissed noise, so a UI or accessibility concern that no worklist knowledge file covers is omitted here rather than emitted with references: []. When you spot a material UI or accessibility defect no article covers, the durable fix is to add a knowledge article in BCQuality (per the online-eval self-improvement loop) so this leaf can cite it — not a one-off reference-less finding. Before treating a candidate as uncovered, check the worklist for a knowledge file that matches it; if one exists, emit it as a knowledge-backed finding. See skills/do.md for the full contract.

For every emitted finding, decide whether the fix is mechanical. A fix is mechanical when it is small, local, and unambiguous from the diff context (for example: delete unreachable lines; replace Count() > 0 with not IsEmpty(); add a missing ToolTip, OptionCaption, or DataClassification; replace a string-concatenated Error with a Label-backed call; change an over-broad permission token; or add an obvious else/guard branch). For mechanical findings, emit findings[].suggested-code with the literal replacement for the source lines indicated by location. The payload must be a verbatim replacement — no diff markers, no fences, no commentary — that the consumer can render as a one-click suggestion. When a .good.al companion exists and the diff context matches the .bad.al shape, adapt the .good.al replacement into suggested-code.

Omit suggested-code only when the appropriate fix depends on context the skill cannot determine, when multiple defensible replacements exist, or when the fix spans non-contiguous code. If a finding is mechanical-looking but you omit suggested-code, set findings[].suggested-code-omission-reason to a short explanation. See skills/do.md for the full contract.

Outcome selection:

  • completed — the skill evaluated every worklist item.
  • no-knowledge — no applicable UI knowledge survived filtering.
  • not-applicable — the diff contains no page, pageextension, pagecustomization, or control add-in implementation files.
  • partial — a budget was hit before the worklist was exhausted.
  • failed — an unrecoverable error occurred.

Output

Output conforms to the DO output contract. Every finding this skill emits MUST set findings[].domain to "Accessibility". A populated example:

{
  "skill": { "id": "al-ui-review", "version": 1 },
  "outcome": "completed",
  "summary": {
    "counts": { "blocker": 0, "major": 0, "minor": 1, "info": 0 },
    "coverage": { "worklist-size": 1, "items-evaluated": 1 }
  },
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "microsoft/knowledge/ui/show-caption-on-editable-fields.md",
      "severity": "minor",
      "message": "An editable page field sets ShowCaption = false, removing the visible and accessible label. Leave ShowCaption enabled or use a documented exception pattern.",
      "location": {
        "file": "src/Sales/CustomerCard.Page.al",
        "line": 58
      },
      "references": [
        { "path": "microsoft/knowledge/ui/show-caption-on-editable-fields.md" }
      ],
      "confidence": "high",
      "domain": "Accessibility"
    }
  ],
  "suppressed": []
}