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Prerequisites

Before you begin the "Agentic Coding for AL" workshop, please ensure you have the following prerequisites met. Get these in place before you arrive — we have a single day and zero room for setup.

  1. An AI Coding Agent

    Bring whichever AI coding tool you prefer. Today's lesson is the workflow, not the specific tool — every option below works.

    Live demos use Cursor

    The instructor's live demos run in Cursor, so that's the easiest one to follow visually. You can absolutely follow along in any of the others.

    Download from Cursor.

    • Pro plan ($20/month) gives you unlimited Auto mode and a $20 credit pool that covers the premium models we'll use today.
    • Pro+ ($60/month) gives you more headroom if you want to stay on a frontier model all day.
    • The free tier is not enough — credit runs out fast and you'll spend the day waiting.

    You'll need Copilot Pro+ ($39/month), Business, or Enterprise to access the frontier models we want today (Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT‑5.5).

    • The base Copilot Pro plan does not include these models — verify in the model picker before you arrive.
    • On Business or Enterprise, ask your admin to enable the Anthropic Claude and OpenAI Codex policies for your org.

    New sign-ups paused

    GitHub paused new individual Pro and Pro+ sign-ups on April 20, 2026. If you don't already have Pro+, get on the waitlist or pick another option.

    Anthropic's CLI / desktop agent. Comes with any Claude Pro ($20/month) or Max subscription.

    • Pro gives you Opus 4.7, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5 — but with a tighter usage cap (~45 Opus prompts per 5-hour window). Enough for the day if you mix in Sonnet for routine work.
    • Max 5x ($100/month) or Max 20x ($200/month) give you 5× or 20× the usage so you can stay on Opus 4.7 all day without watching the meter.

    Codex, OpenCode, Continue, Aider — whatever you've already got working. The workflow we'll teach is tool-agnostic. Just make sure you can reach a frontier model (see below).

    Models that matter

    The workshop pushes the agent into deep base-app reading and architectural research. Lighter models will struggle. Make sure your AI agent gives you access to at least one of these:

    • Claude Opus 4.7 (preferred for the heavy thinking moments)
    • Claude Sonnet 4.6 (great daily driver)
    • GPT‑5.5 (strong alternative)

    If your only option is a smaller model, you can still complete the workshop — but you may not get the best results from the agent.

  2. The Workshop Repo

    Once you've been added as a collaborator on GitHub, clone the repo:

    git clone https://github.com/DmitryKatson/Workshop-Agentic-Coding-AL.git
cd Workshop-Agentic-Coding-AL

    Open the folder in your AI agent of choice. You should see specs/, app/, test/, AGENTS.md, and .cursor/rules/.

  3. A Local Business Central Container

    SaaS sandboxes will not work

    We run AL tests with the AL Test Framework, which needs a local container. A SaaS sandbox cannot run the test runner we'll use today.

    You need:

    • Docker Desktop running on Windows (or Mac with a Windows VM, or a Windows VM you can RDP into).
    • BcContainerHelper PowerShell module (the script below will install it for you if needed).

    Once you've cloned the repo (step 2), the easiest way to spin up the right container is to run the AL-Go script that ships with it:

    .\.AL-Go\localDevEnv.ps1

    It will install the BcContainerHelper module if needed, create the container with the correct BC version, download the symbols, and configure launch.json for you.

    Use Windows Authentication

    When prompted for authentication type during container creation, choose Windows Authentication — not UserPassword. The AL MCP server requires Windows Authentication to connect to the container and run tests.

    Watch this short walkthrough if you've never set one up before:

    Allow 30–60 minutes

    The first run downloads a large container image. Don't wait until the morning of the workshop.

    Verify it works: open the container, log in as admin, and see the BC role centre. If you get there, you're done.

Please have these prerequisites ready before the workshop to ensure a smooth and productive experience.

🎇 Congratulations! You are now ready to start the "Agentic Coding for AL" workshop.