[Due for payment 2026-03-25] Workspace - Non-existing room mention shows green highlight after saving description

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Version Number: 9.3.38-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #55846
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): sdijnsoijsodosj@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.2 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Go to staging.new.expensify.com
Go to workspace settings > Overview.
Click Description.
Enter a room mention which does not exist (eg, #abc).
Click Save.

Expected Result:

#abc mention will not show green highlight after saving the description because #abc is not an existing room.

Actual Result:

#abc mention shows green highlight briefly after saving the description.
Green highlight indicates the currently opened room, which is not the case as workspace overview is opened.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7104076_1773656732105.5.mp4

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You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #55846

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
Fix the issue yourself.

@truph01

🔍 Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #55846 - "fix: the mentioned room is not highlighted in policy profile page" by @truph01 (High confidence)
Related Issues: #54941 (original issue that PR #55846 fixed)

Recommendation: REVERT

PR #55846 introduced a regression where non-existing room mentions incorrectly show the green highlight (indicating the currently opened room) when saved in workspace descriptions. This happens because the PR sets currentReportID: undefined in the mention context, and non-existing rooms also have reportID: undefined, causing an unintended match (undefined === undefined).

Labels: Removing DeployBlocker label - this is a frontend/App issue that blocks the App deploy only.

📋 Detailed Analysis

Evidence

PR #55846 was intended to fix issue #54941 where room mentions were not highlighted in workspace descriptions. The PR added policyID context to enable room mention highlighting.

However, it introduced a regression visible in the reproduction steps:

When a non-existing room mention (e.g., #abc) is entered in workspace description
After saving, the mention briefly shows green highlight
Green highlight indicates "currently opened room", which is incorrect since workspace overview is open, not #abc

Verification

The bug is in the interaction between these changes:

File: src/pages/workspace/WorkspaceOverviewPage.tsx (line 197)

const mentionReportContextValue = {policyID: policy?.id, currentReportID: undefined};

File: src/components/HTMLEngineProvider/HTMLRenderers/MentionReportRenderer/index.tsx (line 51)

const isCurrentRoomMention = reportID === currentReportIDValue;

File: src/libs/MentionUtils.ts (lines 27-32)
For non-existing rooms, the loop finds no match, so reportID remains undefined.

Root Cause

The comparison reportID === currentReportIDValue evaluates to undefined === undefined = true when:

currentReportIDValue is undefined (set explicitly in WorkspaceOverviewPage context)
reportID is undefined (no matching report found for non-existing room name)

This causes isCurrentRoomMention to be true, which triggers the green highlight styling on line 62:

StyleUtils.getMentionStyle(isCurrentRoomMention)

The fix would need to check that both values are defined before comparing, or use a sentinel value instead of undefined for the context.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

When saving a workspace description that contains a non-existing room mention (e.g., #abc), the mention briefly shows a green highlight. Green highlight is reserved for the "currently opened room" mention, which is incorrect here — the user is on the workspace overview page, not in a room called #abc.

What is the root cause of that problem?

PR #55846 added room mention highlighting to workspace descriptions by wrapping the description in a MentionReportContext.Provider in WorkspaceOverviewPage.tsx. However, the context value is missing exactlyMatch: true:

// WorkspaceOverviewPage.tsx:197
{policyID: policy?.id, currentReportID: undefined}
// Missing: exactlyMatch: true

In MentionReportRenderer/index.tsx:61, the styling condition is:

isGroupPolicyReport && (!exactlyMatch || navigationRoute)

When exactlyMatch is falsy (not set), !exactlyMatch evaluates to true, short-circuiting the OR. The condition becomes just isGroupPolicyReport, which is always true when policyID is provided. This means every mention gets highlighted regardless of whether the room actually exists.

For the green color specifically: isCurrentRoomMention is computed as reportID === currentReportIDValue. For a non-existing room, reportID is undefined (no match found). Since currentReportID is also undefined (WorkspaceOverviewPage explicitly passes undefined), undefined === undefined evaluates to true, triggering the green "our mention" style instead of blue.

By contrast, PureReportActionItem and ReportDetailsPage both correctly set exactlyMatch: true in their context values, which prevents non-existing rooms from being highlighted.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

In src/pages/workspace/WorkspaceOverviewPage.tsx:197, add exactlyMatch: true to the mention context value:

const mentionReportContextValue = {policyID: policy?.id, currentReportID: undefined, exactlyMatch: true};

This makes the styling condition require a valid navigationRoute (which only exists when the room is found and has a real reportID), preventing non-existing rooms from being highlighted — matching the behavior of PureReportActionItem and ReportDetailsPage.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

An alternative would be to add a guard in MentionReportRenderer to check if reportID is defined before applying any highlight styling. However, this would be a broader change affecting all consumers, whereas the missing exactlyMatch: true is the intended pattern already used by other providers and is a one-line fix scoped to the affected page.

Next Steps for Contributor+ team: Reply with @MelvinBot implement this to create a draft PR, @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis, or explain why you are rejecting Melvin's proposal.

MacOS Monterey - Chrome
Build 9.3.38-2
Passed

Screen.Recording.2026-03-17.at.10.41.46.mp4

Windows/Chrome
Build 9.3.38-2

Recording.3673.mp4

Thanks! Closing it then

Reviewing label has been removed, please complete the "BugZero Checklist".

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 9.3.39-3 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

[CP Staging] fix: add exactlyMatch to workspace description mention context #85369

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2026-03-25. 🎊

@madmax330

@madmax330 The PR fixing this issue has been merged! The following checklist (instructions) will need to be completed before the issue can be closed. Please copy/paste the BugZero Checklist from here into a new comment on this GH and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

@mallenexpensify

Triggered auto assignment to @mallenexpensify (Awaiting Payment)

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[Due for payment 2026-03-25] Workspace - Non-existing room mention shows green highlight after saving description #85363

Action Performed:

Expected Result:

Actual Result:

Workaround:

Platforms:

Screenshots/Videos

🔍 Investigation Summary

Recommendation: REVERT

Evidence

Verification

Root Cause

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

What is the root cause of that problem?

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

6 remaining items

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[Due for payment 2026-03-25] Workspace - Non-existing room mention shows green highlight after saving description #85363

Description

Action Performed:

Expected Result:

Actual Result:

Workaround:

Platforms:

Screenshots/Videos

Activity

melvin-bot commented on Mar 16, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Mar 16, 2026

github-actions commented on Mar 16, 2026

OSBotify commented on Mar 16, 2026

🔍 Investigation Summary

Recommendation: REVERT

Evidence

Verification

Root Cause

MelvinBot commented on Mar 16, 2026

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

What is the root cause of that problem?

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

6 remaining items

izarutskaya commented on Mar 17, 2026

cristipaval commented on Mar 17, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Mar 18, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Mar 18, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Mar 18, 2026

melvin-bot commented on Mar 18, 2026

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