The AL-Go artifact setting: every combination that works (and some that don't)

🇩🇪 Deutsche Version

The artifact setting decides which Business Central version AL-Go builds and tests your apps against. It lives in your AL-Go settings, usually .AL-Go/settings.json:

{
  "country": "de",
  "artifact": "//28.5/de/latest"
}

A value has five parts, and every part can be left empty:

<storageAccount>/<type>/<version>/<country>/<select>

Part	If empty
storageAccount	bcartifacts (released versions)
type	Sandbox
version	any version
country	the country setting (default us)
select	latest

That’s why values like ////nextmajor are valid.

The country only selects the localization, not the version: w1, de, us and dk get exactly the same build numbers. w1 is the worldwide base version without country-specific functionality; the localized versions build on it.

All results below were resolved on October 14, 2026, two weeks after the release of 29.0.

Always the current release

Setting	Resolves to
(not set)	29.0.54011.56330	newest sandbox for your country
///w1/latest	29.0.54011.56330	same, explicit
///de/daily	29.0.54011.56262	newest build before today
///us/weekly	29.0.54011.56119	newest build before last Sunday
///dk/current	29.0.54011.56330	same as latest

All of these switch to the new major on release day. daily and weekly only reduce how often the artifact changes, so caches stay valid. They don’t pin a version.

Pin a version

Setting	Resolves to
//28/w1/latest	28.5.54151.56322	newest build of major 28
//28/de/first	28.0.46665.52632	oldest build of major 28
//28.5/us/latest	28.5.54151.56322	newest build of 28.5
//28.5/dk/first	28.5.54151.54178	oldest build of 28.5
//28.5.54151.56322/w1	28.5.54151.56322	exactly this build
//28.5.54151.0/de/closest	28.5.54151.54178	first build ≥ the given version within 28.5, otherwise the newest 28.5
///us/secondtolastmajor	28.5.54151.56322	newest build of the previous major
///dk/first	15.4.41023.43755	oldest sandbox artifact available

• The version is a prefix: 28 matches all of 28.x, 28.1 matches 28.1 but not 28.10.
• Older minors keep receiving builds. 28.5 got a new one two weeks after 29.0 was released, so //28.5/…/latest always gives you the current hotfix level.
• For majors up to 25, only one build per minor is kept. A pinned exact build number can disappear.

Derive the version from your app

With * as version, AL-Go uses your applicationDependency: the highest application version across your app.json files, but at least the AL-Go setting applicationDependency (default 18.0.0.0).

Setting	app.json application	Resolves to
//*/w1/first	28.0.0.0	28.0.46665.52632	oldest build that satisfies your app
//*/de/latest	28.0.0.0	28.0.46665.56311	newest build of 28.0, not 28.5
//*/us/latest	28.5.0.0	28.5.54151.56322	newest build of 28.5
(not set) + "updateDependencies": true	28.0.0.0	28.0.46665.52632	oldest build ≥ your app’s minimum, falls back to insider builds if there is none

* stays within the major.minor of your applicationDependency and only works with first or latest.

Test the next release

Setting	Resolves to
////nextminor	29.1.56191.0	next minor (insider build)
////nextmajor	30.0.56306.0	next major (insider build)
///dk/nextmajor	30.0.56306.0	same, explicit country
bcinsider/Sandbox/30.0/de/latest	30.0.56306.0	a specific insider version

• nextminor and nextmajor read from the bcinsider storage account. AL-Go accepts the insider EULA for you.
• From minor .5 on, nextminor returns the next major, since there is no .6 for sandboxes.
• nextmajor is empty until Microsoft publishes the first insider build of the next major.
• The PTE template ships with .github/Test Next Minor.settings.json and .github/Test Next Major.settings.json, which set exactly these values for the matching workflows. Workflow-specific settings files override the project settings.

On-premises

Setting	Resolves to
/OnPrem//w1/latest	29.0.54011.55407	newest on-premises release
/OnPrem/28/de/latest	28.6.55443.0	newest cumulative update of 28
/OnPrem//dk/weekly	29.0.54011.55407	daily/weekly are treated as latest
/OnPrem//dech/latest	14.53.50097.0	German-language Switzerland, ends with 14

• On-premises has exactly one build per cumulative update, and minors go up to .6.
• The language variants dech, frbe, frca, frch, itch and nlbe exist only on-premises and only up to 14. na ends with 16.
• us has far fewer on-premises builds than w1. Everything before 11 and majors 13, 15 and 16 are missing, so /OnPrem/16/us/latest finds nothing while /OnPrem/16/w1/latest returns 16.19.35126.0.

Doesn’t work

Setting	Error
//28.5/w1/weekly	You cannot specify version, before or after when selecting Daily or Weekly build
bcinsider///de/nextmajor	You cannot specify storageAccount, type=OnPrem or version when selecting NextMajor release
//*/us/closest	Version can only be '*' if select is first or latest.
//28.5/dk/closest	Version number must be in the format 1.2.3.4 when you want to get the closest artifact Url
/OnPrem/16/us/latest	No artifacts found for the artifact setting
bcpublicpreview/Sandbox//w1/latest	the storage account is empty today

daily and weekly can’t be combined with a version. To stay on an older release, use latest with the version instead.

Reference

Storage accounts

Value	Contains
(empty), bcartifacts	released versions, sandbox and on-premises
bcinsider	preview builds, sandbox only
bcpublicpreview	nothing at the moment

Types: Sandbox, OnPrem

Countries

Type	Countries
Sandbox	at, au, be, bg, br, ca, ch, co, cz, de, dk, ee, es, fi, fr, gb, gr, hk, hr, hu, ie, in, is, it, jp, kr, lt, lv, mx, nl, no, nz, pe, ph, pl, pt, ro, rs, se, si, sk, th, tr, tw, ua, us, vn, w1
On-premises	at, au, be, ca, ch, cz, de, dk, es, fi, fr, gb, in, is, it, mx, nl, no, nz, ru, se, us, w1; up to 16: na; up to 14: dech, frbe, frca, frch, itch, nlbe

For sandboxes, countries without their own localization are mapped automatically, for example ae, lu or my to w1, and fo or gl to dk.

Select

Value	Returns	Restrictions
latest	newest match	default
first	oldest match
all	all matches, AL-Go uses the first
closest	first build ≥ version within its major.minor	version must be x.x.x.x
secondtolastmajor	newest build of the previous major	no version
current	current sandbox release	no storage account, version or OnPrem
nextminor	next minor insider build	no storage account, version or OnPrem
nextmajor	next major insider build	no storage account, version or OnPrem
daily	newest build before today	no version; latest for OnPrem
weekly	newest build before last Sunday	no version; latest for OnPrem

Instead of a search value, artifact also accepts a full artifact URL starting with https://.