[AGILE-301] Fix goal text being wiped on date selection in Sprint dialog

[myabc]

Ticket

https://community.openproject.org/wp/AGILE-301

What are you trying to accomplish?

Entering a start/finish date in the New sprint dialog triggered a form refresh (the duration preview) that wiped any goal text already typed. End users lost their sprint goal whenever they filled the dates after the goal.

Root cause: on refresh the form rebuilt the goal via find_or_initialize_by, which queried the database for an unsaved sprint (sprint_id IS NULL) and ignored the in-memory goal submitted with the request — rendering a blank field.

Note

This fixes a recently-introduced flake in modules/backlogs/spec/features/backlogs/create_spec.rb (e.g. "allows creating a new sprint with a sprint goal"), where the goal occasionally vanished before submission. The same out-of-order refresh races could surface intermittently across the backlogs create specs in CI.

What approach did you choose and why?

• Sprint#goal_for now always reads the in-memory goals association, so a refresh re-renders the submitted goal instead of a blank one. This is the actual bug fix.
• The Stimulus refresh-on-form-changes controller debounces the refresh and aborts any superseded request, so a slow earlier response can no longer land last and overwrite the form with stale state (the source of the residual flake).

Drive-by

Not related to the bug, but worth fixing while here: this PR includes a fix to make the controller safer to use with forms containing form inputs.

the controller's query serialization cast FormData to undefined to satisfy URLSearchParams. Replaced with a small serializeFormQuery helper that copies only string entries (so file inputs can't leak into the URL), drops the cast, and switches the reload to location.replace so a refresh no longer pushes a history entry.

Merge checklist

• Added/updated tests
• Added/updated documentation in Lookbook (patterns, previews, etc)
• Tested major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, ...)

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Fixes a regression in the Backlogs sprint creation/edit dialog where changing the date range triggers a Turbo Stream form refresh that could discard the typed sprint goal (AGILE-301). The PR preserves the in-flight goal value across refreshes and reduces stale refresh overwrites client-side.

Changes:

• Adjust sprint goal lookup/building to prefer the in-memory goal object during dialog refreshes.
• Make Turbo Stream refresh requests debounced and abortable to prevent slower, stale responses from overwriting newer form state.
• Add regression coverage (RSpec model + feature spec, plus a new Stimulus controller unit spec).

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
modules/backlogs/spec/models/sprint_spec.rb	Adds a spec ensuring goal_for can return an in-memory goal for unsaved sprints.
modules/backlogs/spec/features/backlogs/create_spec.rb	Adds a regression feature spec and stabilizes date-change refresh timing around goal entry.
modules/backlogs/app/models/sprint.rb	Changes goal_for implementation used to preserve goal state across refreshes.
modules/backlogs/app/components/backlogs/sprint_form_component.rb	Uses goal_for / build instead of DB-backed find_or_initialize_by to keep the typed goal.
frontend/src/stimulus/controllers/refresh-on-form-changes.controller.ts	Debounces refresh and aborts in-flight requests using @rails/request.js Turbo Stream handling.
frontend/src/stimulus/controllers/refresh-on-form-changes.controller.spec.ts	Adds unit tests for query params, abort behavior, debouncing/coalescing, and error handling.

[github-actions]

Warning

Flaky specs

• rspec ./modules/overviews/spec/features/project_description_widget_spec.rb[1:1:1:1:1]

🤖 Ask Copilot to investigate

Copy the prompt below into a new comment on this PR to delegate the investigation to GitHub Copilot. It will look into the flakiness and open a separate pull request with you as reviewer.

@copilot The following spec(s) are flaky in CI (first seen on PR #23851, linked for reference only):

- `rspec ./modules/overviews/spec/features/project_description_widget_spec.rb[1:1:1:1:1]`

Treat this as a standalone task, unrelated to PR #23851. Create a new branch from origin/dev and open a new pull request targeting dev — do not stack it on PR #23851 or reuse that branch.

Follow the playbook in docs/development/testing/handling-flaky-tests/README.md to find the root cause and fix the underlying race — do not skip, delete, or weaken the spec to make it pass; disabling is a last resort per the playbook, and only with a bug ticket. Verify the fix by running the spec(s) repeatedly (e.g. `script/bulk_run_rspec --run-count 10`).

If you cannot reproduce the flake or are not confident in a fix after reasonable investigation, do not fabricate a change or skip the spec to force CI green. Instead, leave the pull request in draft and document what you tried, the suspected cause, and any leads in its description, then assign @myabc to take over.

Once the fix is verified, title the PR after the spec(s) it fixes, and use the PR description to explain the root cause, how the change resolves it, and the before/after results. Label the PR `flaky-spec`, assign @myabc, and request a review from @myabc.
On every commit, set @myabc as the sole co-author with a `Co-authored-by:` trailer (use their GitHub no-reply email so it links to their account), so it is traceable who dispatched the fix.

[ulferts]

Change looks good. I have questions but those do not prevent merging the PR.