MCP server

Prism for AL runs a Model Context Protocol server. An AI coding agent connects to it and gets tools over the same symbol index and code graph you use in Prism: symbol search, source, references, control flow, reachability, RIMD and commit analysis, user actions, dependencies and the module graph.

The MCP server is part of the Prism for AL subscription and the trial; there is nothing extra to buy.

An agent reaches the server in one of two ways:

Use HTTP while you work in Prism; use stdio when the agent works on its own.

Get started with an agent

Use this to try Prism with Claude Code, or with GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code. With GitHub Copilot, the Prism for AL Connector can register the server for you instead: install it and go straight to step 4.

1. Open the folder or .code-workspace of your AL project in your agent.
2. Open the same workspace in Prism for AL, select the MCP Server page in the navigation pane, and select Start. The Status card shows Running. Keep the workspace window open while the agent works.
3. Select Show mcp.json…, select your agent in Client, and leave HTTP (this window) selected. Select Copy file contents and save it under the name after Paste into: .vscode/mcp.json for Visual Studio Code, .mcp.json for Claude Code.
4. Start a new chat in that workspace, in agent mode in Visual Studio Code. When the agent asks whether to trust the Prism server, allow it.
5. Ask Which objects use codeunit "Sales-Post"?, or name an object of your own.

For more detailed instructions or a more complex setup, see the MCP Server page and mcp.json.

Tell your agent to use Prism

Agents reach for text search out of habit, and for AL a text match gives wrong answers: it misses usages through Rec, record variables, with blocks and extensions, and it matches members with the same name in other objects. An agent skill guards against that. It is a short SKILL.md whose description sits in the agent's context in every session and sends AL questions to Prism. The body is only a few lines, because the server brings its own instructions and tool descriptions.

In Visual Studio Code, the Prism for AL Connector adds the skill for you, together with the server. That is where it matters most: Copilot agent mode lists MCP tools by name only, and in our tests every where-used and caller question started with a text search without the skill and went to Prism with it. Claude Code keeps the server's own instructions in view, and GitHub Copilot CLI shows every Prism tool with its description, so in our tests both went to Prism first with or without the skill. For those and other agents, the skill is a cheap safeguard: save it as prism-for-al/SKILL.md in the agent's skills folder:

---
name: prism-for-al
description: Use for any question about this workspace's Business Central AL code — where a field, procedure, table, enum value or event is used or called from, which code reads or writes a table, what depends on an object, how control flows through it. Load this before searching text or reading .al files; text search gives wrong answers for AL.
---

# Prism for AL

This workspace is indexed by the **Prism for AL** MCP server, which resolves each AL reference to the declaration it binds to — through record variables, `Rec`, `with` blocks and extensions, where a text match misses usages and matches same-named members of other objects.

If your client defers the server's tools, load them with one tool search, then start from `find_symbols`. Which tool answers which question, and how to call it, is in the server's instructions and tool descriptions. After you edit AL files, call `reload_workspace` before you trust the graph again.

What you can ask

Three prompts that show the difference between a text search and a graph, each with the tools the agent calls to answer it. Use names from your own solution.

• Which page actions can end up calling PostDocument in codeunit Sales-Post Helper?

  1. find_user_actions

  Comes back with the actions, not the files.

• Can ProcessElectronicPayment reach a Commit? Show me the shortest path.

  1. find_commits
  2. find_shortest_path

• Which procedures can modify Cust. Ledger Entry and also reach a Commit?

  1. find_reachability_set

  One call. In our LearnPrism workspace, 19 apps with the Base Application among them, it returns 22 procedures in under a second, out of a closure of more than ten thousand nodes that never leave the server.

Whatever the agent answers, the names it gives you are Prism Paths. Open the procedure in Prism and use Immediate insights and Find Shortest Path to check the claim with your own eyes.

Related

• MCP Server page: run the HTTP server and copy your agent's configuration.
• Prism for AL Connector: the server and the skill in Visual Studio Code, without a configuration file.
• MCP server commands: the same server without a Prism window.
• MCP server: when an agent cannot connect or calls fail.