bcquality/microsoft/skills/review/al-upgrade-review.md

kind	id	version	title	description	inputs	outputs	bc-version	technologies	countries	application-area
action-skill	al-upgrade-review	1	AL upgrade review	Reviews AL source changes against upgrade-code and migration guidance from BCQuality.	pr-diff file-path	findings-report	all	al	w1	all

AL upgrade review

Reviews AL source changes against the upgrade 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.

An orchestrator invokes this skill with either a pr-diff (the standard PR-review entry point) or a file-path (single-file review). Upgrade findings are narrow by design — they apply when the diff touches upgrade codeunits, install codeunits, table schema, enums, or objects under migration namespaces. The skill returns not-applicable when none of those apply.

Source

Read the BCQuality knowledge index once — the knowledge-index.json BCQuality builds at the root of the knowledge checkout (Entry's preparation step regenerates it over the live, already-filtered clone — see skills/entry.md). It lists every article that survived layer and allow/deny filtering and carries, per article, its path, layer, domain, frontmatter dimensions, keywords, title, and a one-line description hint — exactly the fields Relevance and Worklist consume. Take the index entries whose domain is upgrade as this skill's candidate set across every enabled layer; do not open the individual article files at this step. Open an article's full body only once it enters the Worklist below, so a review reads the index plus the handful of worklisted articles instead of every file under */knowledge/upgrade/**.

Relevance

Apply the frontmatter matching rules defined in READ (Frontmatter matching semantics) 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].
• countries — the countries declared in the consuming app's app.json. Default to the orchestrator's configured context; if absent, unknown.
• application-area — the union of application areas declared by the changed objects. Pass the actual set; do not substitute [all]. If the area cannot be determined from the changes, the dimension is unknown.

Discard files that are not applicable. Retain conditionally applicable files (any dimension unknown) only when the orchestrator's configuration permits them; findings derived from those files MUST have confidence no higher than medium, AND the finding's message MUST name the dimension or dimensions that were unknown.

Worklist

Narrow the relevant files to the subset that applies to the changes under review. For each relevant file, compute overlap against:

• The changed AL object names and types — especially codeunits with Subtype = Upgrade or Subtype = Install, tables and tableextensions adding or changing fields, enums and enumextensions, and objects under Hybrid*/Migration/Upgrade namespaces.
• The changed triggers and procedures, weighted toward OnCheckPreconditionsPerCompany/PerDatabase, OnUpgradePerCompany/PerDatabase, OnValidateUpgradePerCompany/PerDatabase, OnInstallAppPerCompany/PerDatabase, the OnGetPerCompanyUpgradeTags/OnGetPerDatabaseUpgradeTags subscribers, and helper procedures transitively reachable from those entry points.
• Tokens extracted from the diff that relate to upgrade concerns (Subtype = Upgrade, Subtype = Install, Upgrade Tag, HasUpgradeTag, SetUpgradeTag, OnCheckPreconditions, OnUpgrade, OnValidateUpgrade, OnInstallApp, DataTransfer, CopyFields, Insert, Modify, Delete, Rename, InitValue, ObsoleteState, ObsoleteReason, ObsoleteTag, DataVersion, ExecutionContext, PrimaryKey, key(, field(, value(, enum, enumextension, HybridSL, HybridGP, HybridBC, HybridBaseDeployment).
• For each OnCheckPreconditions... and OnValidateUpgrade... trigger, build the best available call graph from surrounding unchanged source as well as changed hunks, tracing resolved calls through reachable local or internal helpers. Worklist the check-only rule when a database write occurs either directly in the trigger or in any helper procedure reachable from it. Writes include Insert, Modify, ModifyAll, Delete, DeleteAll, Rename, and DataTransfer. Also perform the reverse check when a PR changes a writing helper body: worklist the rule when that helper is invoked directly or transitively by an unchanged check or validation trigger.
• Treat a direct write or a fully resolved call chain as high-confidence evidence. When cross-object dispatch, unavailable declarations, or an incomplete call graph prevents proving the complete chain, cap confidence at medium, name the unresolved edge in the finding, and do not claim a violation without a resolved path from a check or validation trigger to a write.
• Worklist the install-versus-upgrade rule when migration helpers are reachable only from an install codeunit.

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 object type. Read an article's full file — its ## Best Practice / ## Anti Pattern bodies — only after it makes the worklist; candidate selection uses the index alone. When the diff contains no upgrade-related changes by any of the above signals, return outcome: "not-applicable" without evaluating files.

Once the candidate worklist is known, resolve layer-precedence conflicts per READ. Drop lower-precedence files whose normative guidance directly contradicts a higher-precedence candidate, and record each dropped file in suppressed with reason: "layer-precedence". Files suppressed by configuration are recorded with reason: "configuration".

When the post-conflict worklist is empty because no applicable upgrade knowledge exists, or because configuration suppressed every candidate, emit outcome: "no-knowledge". When the worklist is empty because no applicable upgrade knowledge matched the 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. Emit findings as follows:

• When the diff contains a clear match for an Anti Pattern, emit a finding with severity major or blocker, a message summarizing the anti-pattern, location pointing to the offending line or range, and a references entry pointing to the knowledge file. Use blocker for irreversible data corruption (enum-ordinal shift, unguarded reads that abort the upgrade) and for changes that would ship to customers without a migration path (new InitValue on an existing table without upgrade code).
• When the diff contains code that contradicts a Best Practice without being a full anti-pattern, emit minor with the same reference shape.
• Applicability alone is not a finding. Emit info only for a concrete, non-actionable observation the article explicitly defines; otherwise emit nothing when no violation is present.

Set confidence to:

• high when the detection is based on an unambiguous pattern match and any required helper reachability is fully established.
• medium when detection relies on heuristics or when any frontmatter dimension was unknown.
• low when the finding is an advisory derived only from applicability.

After evaluating each worklist entry, also consider whether the diff exhibits a upgrade defect the agent recognises from its general AL knowledge that no knowledge file in the worklist covers. Such candidates are agent findings within this skill's domain — emit them with references: [], an id slug prefixed with agent:, confidence capped at medium, severity capped at minor (agent findings are advisory and non-gating), and a message that is self-contained (describing both the issue and a concrete recommendation, since there is no knowledge-file footer for the consumer to fall back on). Hold every candidate to the precision bar in skills/do.md (Agent findings): emit only a concrete, material upgrade or breaking-change defect a knowledgeable BC reviewer would agree is wrong — steelman it first and drop anything stylistic, speculative, dependent on code outside the diff, or merely a valid alternative; when in doubt, omit. The scope is strictly upgrade; defects outside this domain belong to other leaves and MUST NOT be emitted here. Before emitting, check the worklist for a knowledge file that matches the candidate — if one exists, upgrade the candidate to a knowledge-backed finding instead. 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(); move a local Label to object scope; 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 upgrade knowledge survived filtering.
• not-applicable — the diff touches no upgrade, install, schema, or enum surface.
• 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 "Upgrade". A populated example:

{
  "skill": { "id": "al-upgrade-review", "version": 1 },
  "outcome": "completed",
  "summary": {
    "counts": { "blocker": 1, "major": 0, "minor": 0, "info": 0 },
    "coverage": { "worklist-size": 1, "items-evaluated": 1 }
  },
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "microsoft/knowledge/upgrade/enum-values-additive-at-end.md",
      "severity": "blocker",
      "message": "A new enum value was inserted at ordinal 1, shifting every subsequent value by one. Rows that store the old ordinal 1 will silently resolve to the new value. Per the referenced guidance, enum values must be appended at the end.",
      "location": {
        "file": "src/Shared/OrderStatus.Enum.al",
        "line": 7
      },
      "references": [
        { "path": "microsoft/knowledge/upgrade/enum-values-additive-at-end.md" }
      ],
      "confidence": "high",
      "domain": "Upgrade"
    }
  ],
  "suppressed": []
}