What happened with customALGoSystemFiles?

[jwikman]

In PR #853 there was a setting called customALGoSystemFiles, which was very promising feature.

Now that we're on v7.3 I was about to check this feature out, but I couldn't find a trace of it! Digging into #853, I can see that I hadn't dreamt about it, but it was there before the summer.

I would love to be able to transfer some .md files via our custom template. Eg. .github\copilot.instructions.md, some *.instructions.md files in a subfolder, AGENTS.md files, etc.

customALGoSystemFiles was a bit more advanced than our needs, since we could put the file inside the custom template repo - we just need a way to configure which files should be included or not when updating AL-Go System Files.

So, any plans to implement that kind of feature? Would you accept a PR on it? (After agreeing on scope and design)

[frottke]

We were also under the impression that we could update such files with this feature. It would be great if we could include this as a feature.

[aholstrup1]

I think we took the feature out in the end for two reasons; 1) the PR already contained quite a few changes to we preferred removing it initially to simplify the PR and minimize the risks 2) we weren't entirely sure what the use cases of such a setting was that the custom templates couldn't handle already.

That being said, I think we're open to such a feature existing. Before we start implementing anything, can I just ask what you're missing in AL-Go today that this feature could solve? Just to get a better understanding of the challenges you guys are facing before we start implementing anything :)

@jwikman from your description it sounds like it's the ability to manage markdown files centrally in the custom template and have Update AL-Go System Files propagate those to the "end repos". Is that correctly understood?

@frottke Can you elaborate a bit on your use-case?

[jwikman]

@aholstrup1, I understand the reasoning, totally fair.

The scenario we have is to put custom files in the Custom Template repo and then distribute them to all our repos. Right now, it is .md and .ps1 files. (.ps1 is supported today, but only in the .github folder, not in subfolders)

This seems to be handled by $checkfiles in Actions\CheckForUpdates\CheckForUpdates.ps1

So, I think this is what we would like to do:

1. Add patterns to $checkfiles
2. Add delete patterns to the $checkfiles logic
3. Add exclude patterns to the $checkfiles logic so we could add all files from a folder, but exclude some of them
4. Set that a pattern should be applied recursively in subfolders

1 would unblock us.
2 would probably soon be needed after applying 1. 😅
3 and 4 is more "nice to haves".