Developers and other technically fluent personas building extensions for Dynamics 365 Business Central can now discover and run AL tests directly inside Visual Studio Code, without switching to an external test runner or the Business Central web client. This tighter integration with the IDE reduces context-switching, shortens feedback loops, and makes it easier to adopt test-driven development practices.

Learn more about the Test Explorer and running tests in Visual Studio Code.

Discover and run tests

The Test Explorer automatically detects test codeunits and test methods in the active workspace. To explore and run tests:

Open the Test Explorer view in Visual Studio Code.
Verify that your test codeunits appear in the test list. Only tests in the active workspace are shown. Tests are sorted by owning app, then by codeunit, then by test procedure.
Select the test you want to run and choose the Run button.
Review execution progress and results in the Test Results panel.

Run profiles

How tests are run depends on the chosen run profile, as summarized here:

Profile	Description
Publish & Run (default)	Publishes the test project and any changed dependencies before running the selected tests.
Run	Runs the selected tests without republishing the project.
Run & Debug	Publishes the test project and starts a run with the debugger attached.
Coverage (Procedure)	Runs the selected tests and collects procedure-level code coverage.

Code coverage

When the Coverage (Procedure) profile is used, the test run tracks which procedures and triggers each test invokes. Results are provided as CodeLens annotations on the relevant procedures. Clicking a CodeLens reruns only the tests that covered that procedure—useful for quickly validating a targeted change.

Supported environments

Running tests from Visual Studio Code is supported in online sandbox environments and local (on-premises) server installations. Running tests on production environments isn't supported, as it might affect business operations.

Limitations

Tests run from Visual Studio Code don't execute under an AL test runner codeunit. As a result:

Running AI tests isn't supported.
Tests that rely on events published by a test runner for setup or teardown might not work.
Isolation level is determined by the RequiredTestIsolation property on the test codeunit. If not set, it defaults to Codeunit level isolation.