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Azure Devops compilation tool available

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Posted on by James McCullough

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Hey Everyone:

I've released an Azure Devops Pipeline helper to enable people to make pipelines to compile AL packages. It's got some weaknesses right now but I would appreicate anyone downloading the latest one, trying it and letting me know of any issues. This is a free offering in the Azure Devops Marketplace called "Business Central Build Tasks". I developed it because I was repeating a lot of the build tasks for multiple clients, and I figured if I'm wasting time doing that, then other people are as well. Source code is available to anyone who wants it. I don't want to post too much about it in case someone has a go at me about trying to drum up business - I'm not. I'm making an offering of help on how to pipeline build tasks.

Thanks!

-J

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Evergrowth.eg-bc-build-tasks

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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Sohail Ahmed 11,086 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

Thanks for sharing this, James!

But it should be in Microsoft blog section where you can get feedback and all

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James McCullough 371 on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

Incidentally I'm working on making some improvements to this product:

- add exact version retrieval

- modify the routine that grabs the version number

- make platform-agnostic (currently only works on Windows platforms)

If there's community interest, I'll consider including:

- test runner setup

- test runner execution

- things of that nature

The issue with test runners, though, is that you generally don't want to blow your hosted agent minutes installing Docker, etc., so you want to have your own local agent pre-configured, and it's not as useful for the pipeline plugins. But let me know, people!

-J

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Gerardo Rentería Ga... 23,572 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

Hi It would be advisable if you published it as a blog.

Best GR

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Khushbu Rajvi. 19,137 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

Hope this helps:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/paths/continuous-integration/

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James McCullough 371 on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Evergrowth.eg-bc-build-tasks

I didn't want to put it out here in case people got "weird" about it. It's still a work in progress, and like I said, some weaknesses, but the document on that site, or in the README.md of the repo has pretty defailed instructions. Best of luck, let me know how it goes!

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Ramesh Kumar 7,511 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

Hi James - Can you please share the reference link or documentation if you have anything.

Thanks

Ramesh

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Sohail Ahmed 11,086 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Azure Devops compilation tool available

Maybe this will help others interested.

Thanks for sharing, James! This sounds like a great resource for the community. Having a reusable Azure DevOps helper for compiling AL packages can definitely save time — especially when managing multiple BC projects.

For anyone working with pipelines and CI/CD in Business Central, I recommend checking out the “Business Central Build Tasks” extension in the Azure DevOps Marketplace. It could simplify your build automation a lot.

Looking forward to testing it out — and appreciate you making it available to the community!

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