AL-Go for Github May Office Hour

Overview

The May 2025 AL-Go for GitHub office hour covers recent changes and announcements. Workflows for create release and increment version number now fail early on invalid inputs. A schema property in the AL-Go settings file gives VS Code suggestions and validation, and pull requests can be failed on new warnings only. Both are in preview, with 7.2 mentioned as the release to wait for.

The team also announced that BC Container Helper versions before 6.1 no longer work (AL-Go repositories are not affected), that AL-Go system file versions 5.0 and lower will stop working, and that artifact URLs move behind a front door at the end of June. The Q&A covers Azure DevOps and GitHub integration, data-driven testing, Copilot code review for AL, runtime packages, auto translation, and incremental builds. It also covers Freddy’s departure and how the project continues under the engineering systems team.

Key points

• Create release and increment version number workflows now validate inputs and fail early instead of at the end; more workflows will follow. This is in the latest preview.
• The AL-Go settings schema property gives VS Code suggestions and validates settings, showing a warning on mismatch. It is in preview; 7.2 is mentioned as the release for those not on preview.
• Failing pull requests on new warnings is in preview. It only counts new warnings, can be switched on or off by a setting, does not change CI/CD behavior, and has no configurable threshold.
• BC Container Helper versions earlier than 6.1 no longer work; AL-Go repositories are not affected. Container Helper deprecation is scheduled in about two years, and AL-Go still needs work to become independent of it.
• AL-Go 5.0 still works but versions lower than 5.0 will soon stop working, so run Update AL-Go System Files regularly.
• Direct storage account access for artifact URLs stops at the end of June as part of a Microsoft security push; old blob storage URLs will not work and traffic goes through front door.
• Not supported or not yet effective: data-driven testing in AL-Go, building runtime packages, Copilot code review for AL, auto translation, and page scripting tests on SaaS (blocked by 2FA/MFA, being worked on).

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 “create release workflow” at 1:12
• other “increment version number workflow” at 1:26
• other “AL-Go file” at 2:10
• other “AL-Go settings file” at 2:10
• other “Azure Boards” at 19:39
• other “AI test toolkit” at 23:25
• other “pre-commit” at 25:09
• other “code cut” at 25:19

Quotes

• 1:00 “we’ve enhanced that in the in the latest preview. Um, so now what we saw was that when you ran the create release workflow,”
• 2:10 “at the top of your ALGO file, you get this schema property. And the schema property will do two things for you. First of”
• 3:37 “So, this new feature failing pull requests on your warnings. Um, so it won’t change the behavior of your CI/CD workflows. Uh, that’ll still”
• 4:26 “PC container helper versions earlier than se 6.1 uh, basically don’t really work anymore. Um, algo repositories are not affected”
• 5:03 “please make sure you regularly update your run update algo system files uh because some of the earlier versions of a go will soon”
• 5:16 “5.0 and lower sorry 5.0 will work lower than 5.0 will not work. Uh for reference 5.0 is about a year old now.”
• 6:13 “I am no longer with Microsoft or I’m still here uh at least for for for some time being. Um but I’m like no”
• 9:09 “so busy container upper is not deprecated yet. It’s deprecated in about two years time I believe is scheduled. um and and it is”
• 13:08 “We’re not running we are unable to run page scripting tests on SAS environments due to the to the 2FA or MFA requirement of”
• 13:08 “We’re not running we are unable to run page scripting tests on SAS environments due to the to the 2FA or MFA requirement”
• 17:49 “this feature essentially looks at new warnings only. So if you have a codebase that already has a bunch of warnings and you want”
• 18:06 “there are other ways to control breaking and failing on warnings, but not um threshold that is configurable in terms of the number of”
• 19:39 “Azure boards integration being one of them. Uh so you can reference work items from GitHub and it creates automatically creates a link”
• 21:44 “If you look at the teams I don’t think there’s any doubt that GitHub receives the most love and attention from development teams. A”
• 23:42 “we haven’t built support for that into a go yet. That’s something that needs to be investigated and and how we can do that”
• 24:47 “guess there is a co pilot uh code review but it’s not very good at al yet”
• 26:40 “On the ELGO project board, there are some cards about auto translation. Is there any news on that? I don’t believe so.”
• 27:44 “the biggest feature that came out of that round table was the incremental builds feature”
• 27:44 “the biggest feature that came out of that round table was the incremental builds feature 23 that was in that was that round table”
• 30:44 “Seems like it this this is maybe a good opportunity to also promote a little bit the discussions we have on GitHub where we”
• 35:04 “those URLs would be something like bc artifacts.blo.s storage.net or something like that. Uh and those will not work in the future.”
• 35:43 “at the end of June we’ll we’ll stop you know the ability to access the storage accounts directly and so by that time all”
• 36:33 “It is definitely not. we have a still have a bunch of work left to make a go independent of container helper”
• 37:28 “the modifications in ALGO will probably I mean you probably won’t notice them in a lot of cases things will just happen and suddenly”
• 41:47 “we just got another person working on Algo as well, Sebastian. And, uh, yeah, even though Freddy is leaving, we will be continuing to”
• 42:20 “there is a statement from uh Dimmitri from Microsoft uh basically also stating that we’re not defunding our efforts into the go”
• 43:58 “I’m going to start my own business and figure out how I can I can manage life, work, and whatever experiences I want to”
• 45:14 “Elgo will fall under and I mean has fallen under the engineering systems team which is the team I work on Maria work on”
• 45:42 “it’s been under it’s been under our team for a couple of years, but Fred has still been the one coming up with a”
• 47:25 “you can always reach us on in the discussion tab on ALGO. There’s also a questions uh tab”

Disclaimers in the video

• 1:58 preview: If you’re on preview, you might already see it. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the 7.2
• 4:07 preview: Right now it’s in preview. Uh I don’t know if we have any. We’ll ship 7.2 soon.
• 9:09 coming-later: It’s deprecated in about two years time I believe is scheduled. um and and it is being replaced by a new module.
• 13:08 coming-later: We’re unable to run page scripting tests on SAS environments due to the 2FA or MFA requirement but it is being worked on. Whether it’s going to be next month or months after that, I don’t know. But soon as possible.
• 13:23 coming-later: Whether it’s going to be next month or months after that, I don’t know. But soon as possible.
• 23:42 not-in-this-release: we haven’t built support for that into a go yet. That’s something that needs to be investigated
• 24:47 preview: there is a co-pilot uh code review, but it’s not very good at AL yet
• 25:58 not-in-this-release: never never got to that it’s part of the backlog
• 28:23 coming-later: sadly not something we’ve uh had the time to to work on
• 33:10 coming-later: We have empty pages that says coming soon
• 36:33 coming-later: we have a still have a bunch of work left to make a go independent of container helper

Presenters (as heard): Alexander, Maria, Yonas, Freddy, Sebastian, Jonas, Jose Madreal K, Roberto Corella, Ryan, Christian, Dimmitri.