Json Configuration Files: app.json and launch.json in AL Project

Hey D365 Lovers,

In this article, I am going to talk about .json files where all the configuration set by the developer for an extension. To be able to develop an extension and then build and deploy to our testing environment, we first have to provide the right configuration in both the app .json file and the launch .json file. Let’s know more about this, we have 2 different types of .json file in an AL project or in an extension:

1. app.json file

2. launch.json file

JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, which is a lightweight data interchange format, often used for storing and transporting data. These files are automatically created when you start a new AL project. These files are used to store configuration data about your AL project. The app.json file contains information about the extension you are building, such as publisher information, the name and the version of the extension, and the launch.json file contains the server information where we deploy the extension.

App.json file

The app.json file contains information about the extension that you are building, such as publisher information, name and the minimum supported version. Often the app.json file is referred to as the manifest. This file is very important because if you did any mistake in this you can’t able to publish your extension, relevant configuration done in this.

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Fig 1: app.json file snippet

* Required for AppSource submission

Launch.json file

The launch.json is a configuration file that contains information about the server that the extension launches on. There are two configurations depending on whether the extension is published to a local server or to the cloud.

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Fig 2: launch.json file snippet for Microsoft cloud sandbox

Fig 3: launch.json file snippet for Your own server

launch.json file depends upon the cloud sandbox and local server for both cases this file accepts different values. So let’s discuss some important and mandatory properties.

Publish to Microsoft cloud sandbox settings:

Publish to your own local server settings:

I hope you understand what are .json files in an AL Project and why these files are required.

In the next articles, I will tell you how you can create a Sandbox Environment and deploy your first extension in Dynamics 365 Business Central that we created in this article and test.

Stay Tuned!

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