bcquality/microsoft/knowledge/security/use-secrettext-for-credentials.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

1.3 KiB

bc-version domain keywords technologies countries application-area
all
security
secrettext
credentials
debugger
type
al
w1
all

Use SecretText for credentials

Description

SecretText is a compile-time-checked AL type for credentials, API keys, tokens, and similar sensitive values. The compiler rejects literal assignments to SecretText and blocks implicit conversion back to Text or Code, which prevents many accidental disclosures via logs, errors, and the debugger (regular and snapshot). A SecretText value remains opaque throughout its lifetime.

Best Practice

Type every credential-carrying variable, procedure parameter, and return as SecretText. Compose values with SecretStrSubstNo (see compose-secrets-with-secretstrsubstno). For HttpClient integration, see use-secrettext-with-httpclient. When a secret must be extracted from a Text source, contain that conversion in a NonDebuggable procedure (see use-nondebuggable-when-parsing-secrets).

See sample: use-secrettext-for-credentials.good.al.

Anti Pattern

Passing credentials around as Text or Code parameters. Every such variable is visible in the debugger and may be captured by error handlers, logs, and telemetry that treat Text as non-sensitive.

See sample: use-secrettext-for-credentials.bad.al.