BCDock Docs¶

BCDock is a managed Business Central sandbox platform. Two equally first-class ways in:

Portal — point-and-click for consultants, trainers, and sales engineers. Sign up, pick a BC version + region, click create.
CLI — bcdock for developers, CI pipelines, and AI agents. The same Platform API the portal uses.

This site is the developer / agent / ops reference. For pricing and signup go to bcdock.io; for the running app go to app.bcdock.io.

Where to start¶

Use the portal

Sign in, pick a BC version, click create. No CLI required.

→ Portal quickstart
Use the CLI

curl ... | sh, then bcdock auth login, then bcdock env create --wait.

→ CLI quickstart
Integrate an agent

Set BCDOCK_TOKEN, point Claude / Copilot at the CLI, ship a working AL extension end-to-end.

→ Agent quickstart

What's here¶

CLI install — install paths for macOS, Linux, Windows
CLI authentication — API keys vs JWT, scopes, the three credential paths
CLI concepts — pool vs environment, hibernation, billing model
CLI exit codes — what each code means, what your script should do
Command reference — auto-generated from the CLI binary

What BCDock is — and isn't¶

BCDock manages environments (BC Docker containers) running on pools (Azure VMs we operate). One pool hosts 2–9 environments. We never stop pools; we hibernate environments to blob storage when you don't need them, and resume on demand.

It is not Business Central SaaS. It is a sandbox infrastructure for development, testing, training, demos, and CI — explicitly not for production data. Honest comparison: reference/limitations.

Audience¶

If you're a:

BC consultant, trainer, or sales engineer — start with the Portal quickstart. For evaluation and pricing, see bcdock.io.
Developer or DevOps engineer — start with the CLI quickstart. Every portal action has a CLI verb against the same Platform API.
Integrating an AI agent that runs BC code — start with the Agent quickstart. Set BCDOCK_TOKEN from app.bcdock.io/profile/api-keys and point Claude or Copilot at bcdock.