feat: optimize project list external endpoint

[sriramveeraghanta]

Description

• Optimize external projects list endpoints

Type of Change

• Improvement (change that would cause existing functionality to not work as expected)

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Refactor
  • Optimized data fetching for project lists to reduce unnecessary preloading and improve responsiveness.
  • Users may notice faster loading times when browsing projects, with no changes to visible features or behavior.
  • The update streamlines server-side processing and can reduce server load during peak usage.
  • No action required from users or administrators.

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The queryset in ProjectListCreateAPIEndpoint.get_queryset was modified to reduce select_related preloading from multiple relations ("workspace", "workspace__owner", "default_assignee", "project_lead") to only "project_lead". No other logic or public interfaces were changed.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Change summary
API queryset optimization apps/api/plane/api/views/project.py	Narrowed ORM select_related from {"workspace", "workspace__owner", "default_assignee", "project_lead"} to {"project_lead"} within get_queryset; remaining annotations and filters unchanged.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
    autonumber
    participant C as Client
    participant API as ProjectListCreateAPIEndpoint
    participant ORM as ORM/DB

    C->>API: GET /projects
    API->>ORM: Query Projects<br/>select_related("project_lead")
    Note right of ORM: Previously also selected<br/>"workspace", "workspace__owner",<br/>"default_assignee"
    ORM-->>API: Project rows + joined project_lead
    API-->>C: Response with projects

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Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Suggested reviewers

• dheeru0198

Poem

I twitch my whiskers, hop with glee,
A slimmer query sets data free.
Less baggage on the fetch we tread,
Just project leads, not all the thread.
Thump-thump—cache it, keep it tight,
A nimble hop, performance light! 🐇✨

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

❌ Failed checks (2 warnings)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Description Check	⚠️ Warning	The pull request description provides only a brief statement of intent and the change type but omits critical details required by the template, such as a comprehensive description of what was modified, the Test Scenarios section, any screenshots or media, and references to related issues or design documents.	Please expand the Description section with a detailed explanation of the code changes, fill out the Test Scenarios section with the steps and outcomes of your verification, and include any relevant screenshots, media, or issue references to fully align with the repository’s PR template.
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	You can run @coderabbitai generate docstrings to improve docstring coverage.

✅ Passed checks (1 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title Check	✅ Passed	The title clearly describes the primary change by specifying an optimization of the project list external endpoint and is concise and free of extraneous details.

✨ Finishing touches

• 📝 Generate Docstrings

🧪 Generate unit tests

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch fix-project-list-endpoint-optimize

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[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR optimizes the external projects list endpoint by reducing the number of database joins in the project queryset. The change removes unnecessary select_related fields to improve query performance.

• Removes unnecessary database joins from the project queryset
• Maintains only the essential project_lead relationship
• Improves performance for external project list endpoints

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

📜 Review details

Configuration used: CodeRabbit UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 9237f56 and f68c32b.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• apps/api/plane/api/views/project.py (1 hunks)

⏰ Context from checks skipped due to timeout of 90000ms. You can increase the timeout in your CodeRabbit configuration to a maximum of 15 minutes (900000ms). (2)

• GitHub Check: Lint API
• GitHub Check: Analyze (javascript)

[coderabbitai]

⚠️ Potential issue | 🟠 Major

Reintroduce eager loading for workspace/default_assignee to avoid N+1 queries

With this change the list endpoint stops preloading workspace, workspace__owner, and default_assignee. Any client that uses the documented expand parameter (or the serializer’s default fields) now triggers one extra query per project for each of those relations, undoing the optimization we previously had. That’s a significant performance regression for a list API that can easily return dozens of projects. Please keep those relations in select_related (or replace them with an equivalent prefetch strategy) so the endpoint remains O(1) queries.

-            .select_related("project_lead")
+            .select_related("workspace", "workspace__owner", "default_assignee", "project_lead")

📝 Committable suggestion

‼️ IMPORTANT
Carefully review the code before committing. Ensure that it accurately replaces the highlighted code, contains no missing lines, and has no issues with indentation. Thoroughly test & benchmark the code to ensure it meets the requirements.

Suggested change

	.select_related("project_lead")
	.select_related("workspace", "workspace__owner", "default_assignee", "project_lead")

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

In apps/api/plane/api/views/project.py around line 82, the query no longer
eager-loads workspace, workspace__owner, and default_assignee which causes N+1
queries on the list endpoint; restore those relations to the queryset (e.g. add
them back into select_related or use an equivalent prefetch_related for
m2m/lookups) so the endpoint remains O(1) queries when returning many projects,
ensuring workspace, workspace__owner, and default_assignee are included in the
eager-loading set.