Throttle sidebar pending approvals badge refresh

docs/implplan/SPRINT_20260311_004_FE_sidebar_pending_approvals_badge_refresh_throttle.md

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+# Sprint 20260311_004 - FE Sidebar Pending Approvals Badge Refresh Throttle
+
+## Topic & Scope
+- Eliminate transient live route failures caused by the shared sidebar polling pending approvals on every navigation.
+- Keep the approvals badge current where operators actually need freshness, without making unrelated pages fail under full-route Playwright sweeps.
+- Preserve stale badge state on transient backend failures instead of zeroing the shell and creating false-negative QA noise.
+- Working directory: `src/Web/StellaOps.Web/src/app/layout/app-sidebar`.
+- Allowed coordination edits: `src/Web/StellaOps.Web/src/app/layout/app-sidebar/app-sidebar.component.spec.ts`, `docs/implplan/SPRINT_20260311_004_FE_sidebar_pending_approvals_badge_refresh_throttle.md`.
+- Expected evidence: focused Angular sidebar coverage, rebuilt web bundle synced into `compose_console-dist`, and a live Playwright canonical route sweep returning `111/111`.
+
+## Dependencies & Concurrency
+- Depends on the live compose stack at `https://stella-ops.local`.
+- Safe parallelism: stay inside the shared shell badge behavior; do not broaden this slice into approval queue data contracts or unrelated integrations screens.
+
+## Documentation Prerequisites
+- `AGENTS.md`
+- `docs/qa/feature-checks/FLOW.md`
+- `docs/implplan/SPRINT_20260306_003_FE_playwright_setup_reset_iteration_loop.md`
+
+## Delivery Tracker
+
+### FE-SIDEBAR-APPROVALS-001 - Stop shared-shell badge churn from poisoning unrelated route verification
+Status: DONE
+Dependency: none
+Owners: QA, 3rd Line Support, Product Manager, Architect, Developer
+Task description:
+- A full authenticated Playwright canonical sweep regressed from `111/111` to `110/111`, but the reported failing page (`/ops/integrations/scm`) rendered correctly in isolation. Root-cause triage showed the shared sidebar was refetching pending approvals on every `NavigationEnd`, which turned the sweep into 100+ background calls to `/api/v2/releases/approvals?status=pending`.
+- The clean fix is to treat the pending approvals badge as a stale-while-revalidate shell affordance: load it on startup, throttle ordinary navigation refreshes, force refresh when the operator enters approvals surfaces, and preserve the last known badge count on transient errors.
+
+Completion criteria:
+- [x] The sidebar no longer refetches pending approvals on every unrelated navigation.
+- [x] Approvals surfaces still force a badge refresh.
+- [x] Transient approvals failures do not zero the badge after a successful load.
+- [x] Focused sidebar tests pass.
+- [x] The rebuilt live web returns `111/111` on `live-frontdoor-canonical-route-sweep.mjs`.
+
+## Execution Log
+| Date (UTC) | Update | Owner |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| 2026-03-11 | Sprint created after the live canonical route sweep dropped to `110/111` with `/ops/integrations/scm` falsely failing under a background `503` from `/api/v2/releases/approvals?status=pending`. Direct Playwright repro proved the SCM page itself was healthy and isolated the issue to shared-shell badge churn. | Developer |
+| 2026-03-11 | Added stale-while-revalidate throttling to the pending approvals badge, forced refreshes only for approvals surfaces, and preserved stale badge state on transient failures. Added focused router-backed sidebar coverage for unrelated vs approvals navigation. | Developer |
+| 2026-03-11 | `npx ng test --watch=false --progress=false --include=src/app/layout/app-sidebar/app-sidebar.component.spec.ts` passed `13/13`; `npm run build` passed; the rebuilt bundle was synced into `compose_console-dist`, `stellaops-router-gateway` was restarted, and `node ./scripts/live-frontdoor-canonical-route-sweep.mjs` returned `111/111` against `https://stella-ops.local`. | QA |
+
+## Decisions & Risks
+- Decision: the pending approvals badge is a shell hint, not a hard-real-time signal. It should be refreshed aggressively only when the operator is on approvals surfaces.
+- Decision: preserve the previous badge count after transient failures once a successful load has happened; zeroing the badge on a background hiccup misleads operators and creates false route failures.
+- Risk: the current deployment sync still uses a direct copy into `compose_console-dist`; keep that operational detail outside this sprint’s code scope.
+
+## Next Checkpoints
+- Commit the shared-shell badge repair.
+- Start the next deep page-action sweep now that the canonical route matrix is back to green.

src/Web/StellaOps.Web/src/app/layout/app-sidebar/app-sidebar.component.spec.ts

@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
+import { Component } from '@angular/core';
 import { ComponentFixture, TestBed } from '@angular/core/testing';
-import { provideRouter } from '@angular/router';
+import { provideRouter, Router } from '@angular/router';
+import { of } from 'rxjs';
 import { AppSidebarComponent } from './app-sidebar.component';
+import { APPROVAL_API, type ApprovalApi } from '../../core/api/approval.client';
 import {
   AUTH_SERVICE,
   MockAuthService,
@@ -8,16 +11,32 @@ import {
   StellaOpsScopes,
 } from '../../core/auth';
 
+@Component({
+  standalone: true,
+  template: '',
+})
+class DummyRouteComponent {}
+
 describe('AppSidebarComponent', () => {
   let authService: MockAuthService;
+  let approvalApi: jasmine.SpyObj<ApprovalApi>;
 
   beforeEach(async () => {
     authService = new MockAuthService();
+    approvalApi = jasmine.createSpyObj('ApprovalApi', ['listApprovals']) as jasmine.SpyObj<ApprovalApi>;
+    approvalApi.listApprovals.and.returnValue(of([]));
+
     await TestBed.configureTestingModule({
       imports: [AppSidebarComponent],
       providers: [
-        provideRouter([]),
+        provideRouter([
+          { path: '', component: DummyRouteComponent },
+          { path: 'ops/integrations/scm', component: DummyRouteComponent },
+          { path: 'ops/integrations/registries', component: DummyRouteComponent },
+          { path: 'releases/approvals', component: DummyRouteComponent },
+        ]),
         { provide: AUTH_SERVICE, useValue: authService },
+        { provide: APPROVAL_API, useValue: approvalApi },
       ],
     }).compileComponents();
   });
@@ -168,6 +187,38 @@ describe('AppSidebarComponent', () => {
     expect(hrefs).not.toContain('/setup/notifications');
   });
 
+  it('does not refetch pending approvals badge on unrelated navigation within the refresh window', async () => {
+    setScopes([StellaOpsScopes.UI_READ, StellaOpsScopes.RELEASE_READ]);
+    const router = TestBed.inject(Router);
+    const fixture = createComponent();
+
+    expect(approvalApi.listApprovals.calls.count()).toBe(1);
+
+    await router.navigateByUrl('/ops/integrations/scm');
+    fixture.detectChanges();
+    await fixture.whenStable();
+
+    await router.navigateByUrl('/ops/integrations/registries');
+    fixture.detectChanges();
+    await fixture.whenStable();
+
+    expect(approvalApi.listApprovals.calls.count()).toBe(1);
+  });
+
+  it('forces a pending approvals refresh when navigating into approvals surfaces', async () => {
+    setScopes([StellaOpsScopes.UI_READ, StellaOpsScopes.RELEASE_READ]);
+    const router = TestBed.inject(Router);
+    const fixture = createComponent();
+
+    expect(approvalApi.listApprovals.calls.count()).toBe(1);
+
+    await router.navigateByUrl('/releases/approvals');
+    fixture.detectChanges();
+    await fixture.whenStable();
+
+    expect(approvalApi.listApprovals.calls.count()).toBe(2);
+  });
+
   function setScopes(scopes: readonly StellaOpsScope[]): void {
     const baseUser = authService.user();
     if (!baseUser) {

src/Web/StellaOps.Web/src/app/layout/app-sidebar/app-sidebar.component.ts

@@ -585,6 +585,8 @@ interface NavSectionGroup {
   changeDetection: ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush,
 })
 export class AppSidebarComponent implements AfterViewInit {
+  private static readonly PendingApprovalsBadgeRefreshWindowMs = 30_000;
+
   private readonly router = inject(Router);
   private readonly authService = inject(AUTH_SERVICE) as AuthService;
   private readonly destroyRef = inject(DestroyRef);
@@ -618,6 +620,8 @@ export class AppSidebarComponent implements AfterViewInit {
   private flyoutLeaveTimer: ReturnType<typeof setTimeout> | null = null;
 
   private readonly pendingApprovalsCount = signal(0);
+  private readonly pendingApprovalsBadgeLoadedAt = signal<number | null>(null);
+  private readonly pendingApprovalsBadgeLoading = signal(false);
 
   /**
    * Navigation sections - pre-alpha canonical IA.
@@ -837,13 +841,13 @@ export class AppSidebarComponent implements AfterViewInit {
   });
 
   constructor() {
-    this.loadPendingApprovalsBadge();
+    this.loadPendingApprovalsBadge(true);
     this.destroyRef.onDestroy(() => this.clearFlyoutTimers());
     this.router.events
       .pipe(takeUntilDestroyed(this.destroyRef))
       .subscribe((event) => {
         if (event instanceof NavigationEnd) {
-          this.loadPendingApprovalsBadge();
+          this.loadPendingApprovalsBadge(this.shouldForcePendingApprovalsRefresh(event.urlAfterRedirects));
           this.doctorTrendService.refresh();
           this.closeFlyout();
         }
@@ -955,19 +959,49 @@ export class AppSidebarComponent implements AfterViewInit {
     }
   }
 
-  private loadPendingApprovalsBadge(): void {
+  private loadPendingApprovalsBadge(force = false): void {
     if (!this.approvalApi) {
       return;
     }
 
+    const now = Date.now();
+    const loadedAt = this.pendingApprovalsBadgeLoadedAt();
+    if (!force) {
+      if (this.pendingApprovalsBadgeLoading()) {
+        return;
+      }
+
+      if (
+        loadedAt !== null
+        && now - loadedAt < AppSidebarComponent.PendingApprovalsBadgeRefreshWindowMs
+      ) {
+        return;
+      }
+    }
+
+    this.pendingApprovalsBadgeLoading.set(true);
     this.approvalApi.listApprovals({ statuses: ['pending'] }).pipe(
       takeUntilDestroyed(this.destroyRef)
     ).subscribe({
-      next: (approvals) => this.pendingApprovalsCount.set(approvals.length),
+      next: (approvals) => {
-      error: () => this.pendingApprovalsCount.set(0),
+        this.pendingApprovalsCount.set(approvals.length);
+        this.pendingApprovalsBadgeLoadedAt.set(now);
+        this.pendingApprovalsBadgeLoading.set(false);
+      },
+      error: () => {
+        if (loadedAt === null) {
+          this.pendingApprovalsCount.set(0);
+        }
+        this.pendingApprovalsBadgeLoading.set(false);
+      },
     });
   }
 
+  private shouldForcePendingApprovalsRefresh(url: string): boolean {
+    const path = (url || '').split('?')[0] ?? '';
+    return path.startsWith('/releases/approvals') || path.startsWith('/releases/promotions');
+  }
+
   /**
    * Mouse-proximity auto-scroll for sidebar nav.
    * When mouse is within 60px of top/bottom edges, scroll in that direction.