bcquality/community/knowledge/security/compose-permission-sets-with-included-sets.md
Jesper Schulz-Wedde 9a4198eb28 Add [all] sentinel to bc-version; apply to version-agnostic knowledge
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.
2026-04-23 16:00:03 +02:00

1.7 KiB

bc-version domain keywords technologies countries application-area
all
security
permissionset
includedpermissionsets
assignable
composition
role
al
w1
all

Compose permission sets with IncludedPermissionSets

Seed article. Ported from BC Code Intelligence to seed the community corpus. Community contributors are invited to expand or refine.

Description

The IncludedPermissionSets property lets one AL permission set reference another, composing rights out of smaller building blocks. Combined with Assignable = false on the building blocks, an extension can ship focused per-module units (a table-data cluster, an API-access cluster) and assemble role-shaped sets that include them. Adding an object updates one building block, and every role-shaped set that includes it inherits the change automatically — instead of drifting apart across duplicated definitions.

Best Practice

Break permission grants into small, focused building blocks, one per cohesive concern. Mark the building blocks Assignable = false so administrators do not accidentally assign a fragment. Build role-shaped, Assignable = true sets that reference the relevant building blocks through IncludedPermissionSets. When the extension grows, the structure absorbs the growth without duplicated edits.

See sample: compose-permission-sets-with-included-sets.good.al.

Anti Pattern

Declaring several role-shaped permission sets that each re-enumerate the same object lists. Adding a new table means touching every set by hand; the sets drift apart over time, and subtle authorization bugs appear where one role was updated and a sibling role was not.

See sample: compose-permission-sets-with-included-sets.bad.al.