ALCops: LinterCop's Successor for Business Central AL Code Analysis (feat Arthur van de Vondervoort)

Overview

Arthur van de Vondervoort explains why he moved from LinterCop to ALCops. The reasons given are GitHub rate limits that broke DLL downloads in pipelines since May 2025, AL 16.4 version compatibility problems, and a design that had grown into a “Swiss Army knife”. LinterCop now only covers code quality, and its repository is deprecated with no new rules planned.

The session shows the six-cop structure, expanded code fixes (about 30 rules), rewritten rule descriptions aimed at AI agents, and a migration guide. It also covers NuGet distribution with semantic versioning, a single package for all AL versions, an AL-Go helper, a dynamic transfer fields analyzer, and the MCP server. The speaker states that ALCops was released that week and may contain bugs.

Key points

• LinterCop problems named: since around May 2025 GitHub limited unauthenticated requests to about 60 per hour per public IP, breaking DLL downloads in DevOps pipelines; missing AL 16.4 support (marketplace only had 16.3, dev tools NuGet 16.2) was also an issue.
• ALCops splits analysis into six cops (LinterCop, PlatformCop, ApplicationCop, Test Automation, Documentation, Formatting); LinterCop is kept inside it but trimmed to code quality only.
• The Test Automation cop exists as a separate cop, but test automation rules are not implemented yet and are on the backlog (e.g. validating confirm dialog content).
• LinterCop and ALCops cannot run together in VS Code because they share diagnostic IDs; disable LinterCop to use ALCops.
• Expect new warnings after migrating: ALCops analyzes deeper, and the migration guide covers about 95 percent of the rules. Try it locally in VS Code before switching pipelines.
• Distribution is via NuGet with semantic versioning, so pipelines can pin a version. One package works across AL versions sharing a .NET target using reflection, and an AL-Go helper fetches the right feed (defaults to .NET 8 for AL 16.0+).
• Code fixes grew from about five or six to 30 rules. The MCP server is at 0.1 alpha and applies Microsoft quick fixes programmatically; a 1.0 may follow after a couple of weeks of fine tuning.

Features

AL objects mentioned

As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.

• other “ALCops” at 13:46
• other “LinterCop” at 14:07
• other “PlatformCop” at 14:36
• other “ApplicationCop” at 15:02
• other “Test Automation Cop” at 15:22
• other “Documentation Cop” at 18:49
• other “Formatting Cop” at 18:49
• other “MCP server” at 33:05
• other “AL cups extension” at 31:28
• other “account scheduling” at 53:29
• other “result line” at 53:29
• table “Object table” at 1:09:52
• other “shipment line” at 1:07:55
• other “sales line” at 1:07:55
• other “purchase lines” at 1:07:55

Not found in BC28-30: table “Object table”.

Quotes

• 1:22 “we’re almost at the 100. I think we’re now at like 90 95 rules somethingish”
• 2:10 “that started around I think 3 months, four months agoish. um that I saw some some things I wanted to change and I saw”
• 2:54 “that’s called AL Cops. Um that’s the the uh growing further from from the business central club you’ve started”
• 3:56 “In May of 2025 um GitHub updated the rate limits for and uh important part unauthorized request”
• 4:29 “I think they uh get it back to like 60 requests per hour per public IP.”

Disclaimers in the video

• 9:51 other: we’re not going to do any more development on on this
• 17:20 coming-later: It’s on my backlog to to develop in test automation cop rules
• 18:14 not-in-this-release: There isn’t a rule currently today that will help you get a warning or a diagnostic for test dialogue validation
• 30:17 preview: I released it this week maybe should be some bugs I didn’t uh find as of today
• 30:37 preview: so jumping today is is uh could be of course but is is quite uh could be quite an an …
• 34:49 subject-to-change: that’s yeah still the subject for for testing and probably improvement
• 36:32 preview: this is brand new. We just delivered it a few days ago. So um it’s also in an early stage
• 39:41 preview: MCP server is currently at 0.1 alpha
• 40:01 coming-later: Version 1.0 expected in next couple weeks after fine tuning
• 47:35 subject-to-change: Not ready as of today for some pipeline tools, hoping in next couple weeks or something maybe first draft
• 58:40 coming-later: Currently no rule in place for try functions but the idea was there in business central interop already
• 1:04:54 subject-to-change: LinterCop currently on life support with uncertain timeframe for continued support
• 1:05:41 subject-to-change: I’m not sure how longer I see all those like at the beginning I said I see all the crack …
• 1:06:42 not-in-this-release: The repos itself is deprecated. So it won’t receive any new new updates anymore
• 1:06:42 subject-to-change: there probably won’t be any new rules on the llinter anymore. Right. Correct. So um that was also the deprecation

Presenters (as heard): Arthur van de Vondervoort, Luke, Moderator.