Ctrl+F5/F5 empties the rad.json of the project active when the publish finishes, not of the published project #8361

1. Describe the bug

In a multi-root workspace, Ctrl+F5 and F5 empty the rad.json of the project that's active when the publish finishes, instead of the project they published. If another project's file is focused by then (e.g. to publish that project next, as a large app takes minutes to publish), that project's rad.json is emptied, and the published project's rad.json keeps listing every object changed in it. AL: Publish full dependency tree for active project doesn't have the problem: it empties the rad.json of each project it published.

Running tests from VS Code is hit hardest. The Test Explorer builds every project reference whose rad.json lists changes, then publishes every project it built, whatever dependencyPublishingOption says. So the next test run republishes the app that was just published (minutes for a large app) before running the tests, even with "dependencyPublishingOption": "Ignore".

2. To Reproduce

1. Multi-root workspace with app A, app B that depends on A, and test app T that depends on A. Every launch configuration has "dependencyPublishingOption": "Ignore".
2. Change an object in A, so A's .vscode/rad.json lists it.
3. Focus A's app.json and press Ctrl+F5.
4. While A is publishing, focus B's app.json.
5. Wait until A's publish succeeds.
6. Open A's and B's .vscode/rad.json.
7. Run any test of T from the Test Explorer.

3. Expected behavior

• Step 6: A's rad.json is empty, as A was published.
• Step 7: only T is built and published.

4. Actual behavior

• Step 6: B's rad.json is emptied, and A's still lists the changed objects.
• Step 7: the Test Explorer rebuilds A and publishes it again before T. Ctrl+F5 of B or T also rebuilds A, though with Ignore it only publishes B or T.

The cause, from the 18.1 binaries:

• DebugAdapterLaunchRequestHandlerBase.PublishPackage takes the project to publish from LanguageServerOptions.ProjectRoot when the publish starts.
• Once the publish has succeeded, DebugAdapterLaunchBrowserRequestHandler calls EmptyThisAndPublishedPackagesRadFiles, which empties ObjectChangeDocumentManager.ActiveObjectChangeManager and VsCodeWorkspace.CurrentRadPath: the current project at that moment.
• BuildAndPublishHelper.PublishProjectsAsync (used by the full dependency publish and the Test Explorer) calls EmptyRadContext(project) for each project it published, which is right.
• RunTestRequestHandler calls BuildAndPublishHelper.BuildAndPublishProjectsAsync with forceBuildOfAllDependencies false, which publishes every project that BuildWorkspaceAsync built (GetSortedProjectsForSelectivePublish), so a project reference with a stale rad.json is republished.

We hit this on 21 Oct 2026: A (about 800 objects, several minutes to publish) was published successfully (the app in the sandbox matches the local source, file for file), but afterwards its rad.json still listed all 9 objects changed in it, and B's had been emptied.

5. Versions:

• AL Language: 18.1.2842859
• Visual Studio Code: 1.142.0
• Business Central: 28.5 (online sandbox)
• List of Visual Studio Code extensions that you have installed: AL Language, plus others that don't take part in publishing (e.g. GitHub Copilot Chat, ALCops). The cause above is in the AL Language extension's own code.
• Operating System:
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • MacOS

Final Checklist

• Search the issue repository to ensure you are reporting a new issue
• Reproduce the issue after disabling all extensions except the AL Language extension
• Simplify your code around the issue to better isolate the problem