Fix parent_document_url not being sent to asset manager for consultation outcome attachments [WHIT-3466] by eYinka · Pull Request #11469 · alphagov/whitehall

eYinka · 2026-05-18T16:32:16Z

When a consultation or call for evidence is published, PublishAttachmentAssetJob updates each attachment's metadata in asset manager. For attachments belonging to a ConsultationOutcome, ConsultationPublicFeedback, or CallForEvidenceOutcome, parent_document_url was never sent because the job guards with respond_to?(:public_url), and neither ConsultationResponse nor CallForEvidenceResponse implemented that method.

Similarly, when we save a draft or update the metadata of an attachment, AssetManagerAttachmentMetadataJob calls attachable_url on AttachmentData to get the parent_document_url. This also returned nil for these types because attachable_url only handled Edition subclasses and Policy Group; neither ConsultationResponse nor CallForEvidenceResponse was covered.

We've made two fixes:

Extended ConsultationResponse and CallForEvidenceResponse to delegate public_url to their parent_attachable, so PublishAttachmentAssetJob can use their parent document's public URL for parent_document_url.
Extended attachable_url in AttachmentData to handle non-edition attachables that respond to parent_attachable, so AssetManagerAttachmentMetadataJob now correctly sets parent_document_url at every metadata update, including for draft consultations and calls for evidence.

Finally, I've added a backfill rake task (backfill_parent_document_url_for_non_editionable_attachables) which enqueues AssetManagerAttachmentMetadataJob for all existing attachment data records belonging to ConsultationResponse, CallForEvidenceResponse, and PolicyGroup, so that historically missing parent_document_url values are corrected in asset manager.

Issue was found through a support ticket: https://gov-uk.atlassian.net/browse/WHIT-3466

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jamiestamp

LGTM

ChrisBAshton

Approach looks good 👍 nice one getting to the bottom of it.

In essence, parent_document_url is only reliably set at document publish time. Extending attachable_url to handle non-edition attachables with a public URL would be great as a follow-up work.

Interested in what that looks like. Care to write up a backlog item for it? 🙏

ChrisBAshton · 2026-05-19T13:03:22Z


  delegate :unpublishing, to: :parent_attachable

+  delegate :public_url, to: :parent_attachable


Please roll this out to CallForEvidence too - near-identical document type.

lauraghiorghisor-tw · 2026-05-19T16:18:54Z

Had a quick chat with Ola - changed PR to draft and added a do not merge label to this as I think running the publish job would incorrectly publish draft assets. We'll be looking into using the Metadata updater.

eYinka · 2026-05-20T08:35:25Z

Had a quick chat with Ola - changed PR to draft and added a do not merge label to this as I think running the publish job would incorrectly publish draft assets. We'll be looking into using the Metadata updater.

Just to clarify, the rake task isn't on this PR yet. My original intention was to make a separate PR after merging this update. Nonetheless, let's see if we can do a global fix for both cases in this PR. My rough thought for the known limitation would be adding something like:

  elsif significant_attachable.respond_to?(:public_url)
    significant_attachable.public_url
  end

to

whitehall/app/models/attachment_data.rb

Lines 176 to 183 in 0f5896d

    
           def attachable_url(user = nil) 
        
             visible_edition = visible_edition_for(user) 
        
             if visible_edition.blank? && draft_edition 
        
               draft_edition.public_url(draft: true) 
        
             elsif visible_edition.present? 
        
               visible_edition.public_url 
        
             end 
        
           end

lauraghiorghisor-tw · 2026-05-20T13:42:12Z

    end
  end

+  def url_for(edition)


I am certain this method exists elsewhere - more or less the same

I've checked for this but didn't find any instance.

…type attachments When a consultation or call for evidence is published, `PublishAttachmentAssetJob` updates each attachment's metadata in asset manager. For attachments belonging to a ConsultationOutcome, ConsultationPublicFeedback, or CallForEvidenceOutcome, `parent_document_url` was never sent because the job guards with `respond_to?(:public_url)`, and neither ConsultationResponse nor CallForEvidenceResponse implemented that method. I've extended ConsultationResponse and CallForEvidenceResponse, so the PublishAttachmentAssetJob can use their parent document's public URL for associated attachments' `parent_document_url`. Known limitation: When saving a draft edition of a Consultation Outcome/Public Feedback or Call for Evidence Outcome, the `attachable_url` in AttachmentData is used to get the `parent_document_url` to be sent to Asset Manager. However, this will still return `nil`. This is because that method calls `visible_edition_for` which filters to Edition subclasses only, and neither ConsultationResponse nor CallForEvidenceResponse is an Edition. As a result, `parent_document_url` is only reliably set at publish time, not on every metadata update. Extending `attachable_url` to handle non-edition attachables with a public URL would be great as a follow-up work.

The previous code did not work at all for policy groups, and consultation and call for evidence responses, which are not editions. Since the access limitation restrictions should already kick in before this asset payload is constructed, there is no reason to check for visibility at this level. We have removed the calls to `visible_edition` in favour of just using the `significant_attachable`. This should correctly return either visible attachables or the draft attachable. This works correctly for all attachable types, including responses and policy groups. In order to correctly construct the draft or live attachable URL, we need to determine if it is in draft state. Policy groups are immediately published, so this does not apply to them. For responses, we want to send the parent edition's URL, so we can check the parent state. I have made the `parent_attachable` method public, so we can identify response-like classes - this method is only defined on `ConsultationResponse` and `CallForEvidenceResponse` at the moment. For context, the method was previously never called with a user argument to check the visibility for. The line `visible_edition.blank? && draft_edition` was particularly confusing, since the visible edition should also return the draft_edition, if called with a user. It also invalidated the whole point of ever checking for visibility, when falling back to the draft_edition anyway.

Because ConsultationResponse, CallForEvidenceResponse, and PolicyGroup are attachables that are not editionable, they don't have a parent document URL in Asset Manager. This task backfills the parent document URL for attachments associated with these attachables. Run with `bundle exec rake backfill_parent_document_url_for_non_editionable_attachables`

jamiestamp approved these changes May 19, 2026

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ChrisBAshton reviewed May 19, 2026

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eYinka force-pushed the attachable-url-on-consultation-response branch from 306219f to 2bdc282 Compare May 19, 2026 14:10

lauraghiorghisor-tw added the do not merge label May 19, 2026

lauraghiorghisor-tw marked this pull request as draft May 19, 2026 16:18

lauraghiorghisor-tw force-pushed the attachable-url-on-consultation-response branch from 2bdc282 to cba8239 Compare May 20, 2026 13:19

lauraghiorghisor-tw reviewed May 20, 2026

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eYinka and others added 4 commits May 20, 2026 18:15

Remove unused method

2b0c174

Add withdrawn and unpublished consultation factories

f357908

Add factories for withdrawn and unpublished call for evidence

ae7833c

eYinka force-pushed the attachable-url-on-consultation-response branch from e4c0568 to 5ae5179 Compare May 20, 2026 17:33

eYinka force-pushed the attachable-url-on-consultation-response branch from 5ae5179 to 9af1987 Compare May 21, 2026 08:46

eYinka marked this pull request as ready for review May 21, 2026 11:27

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Fix parent_document_url not being sent to asset manager for consultation outcome attachments [WHIT-3466]#11469

Fix parent_document_url not being sent to asset manager for consultation outcome attachments [WHIT-3466]#11469
eYinka wants to merge 6 commits into
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attachable-url-on-consultation-response

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		delegate :unpublishing, to: :parent_attachable

		delegate :public_url, to: :parent_attachable

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eYinka commented May 18, 2026 •

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