Quick Start

ALCops is a community-driven collection of code analyzers for the AL programming language. It catches common mistakes, enforces best practices, and helps maintain consistent code quality across your Business Central projects.

What ALCops Catches

Here is a small sample of what ALCops detects. Browse the full rules reference for the complete list.

Missing Caption on user-facing controls (AC0011)

User-facing controls need explicit captions for a consistent and localizable UI.

action(MyAction)
{
    trigger OnAction()
    begin
    end;
}

action(MyAction)
{
    Caption = 'My Action';

    trigger OnAction()
    begin
    end;
}

Primary key field missing NotBlank (AC0002)

Single-field primary keys of type Code or Text must set NotBlank to prevent empty key values.

table 50100 MyTable
{
    {
        field(1; "No."; Code[20]) { }
    }
    keys
    {
        key(PK; "No.") { Clustered = true; }
    }
}

table 50100 MyTable
{
    fields
    {
        field(1; "No."; Code[20])
        {
            NotBlank = true;
        }
    }
    keys
    {
        key(PK; "No.") { Clustered = true; }
    }
}

Ready to Set Up?

Choose the approach that fits your workflow:

VS Code — Install the extension and start getting diagnostics immediately (recommended for development)
Command Line — Use alc.exe with analyzer DLLs directly
CI/CD Pipelines — Run ALCops in GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps builds
MCP Server — Let AI assistants analyze your AL code through the Model Context Protocol

Already using BusinessCentral.LinterCop? See LinterCop Migration for a complete diagnostic mapping.