Audited.store changes of behavior and impact on rails controller tests

[stripedpumpkin]

Two changes of behavior related to enabling/disabling auditing for a specific model can observed (at least with Rails 6.1.7.4, but I could investigate with other versions if needed). See https://github.com/stripedpumpkin/rails-audited-controller-poc/blob/main/README.md for a simple way to reproduce for different versions of the gem.

In the change from 5.3.0 to 5.4.0 https://github.com/collectiveidea/audited/compare/v5.3.0...v5.4.0

the definition of Audited.store is changed to use RequestStore, this breaks the persistence of SomeModel.auditing_enabled after a controller action

In the change from 5.4.3 to 5.6.0 https://github.com/collectiveidea/audited/compare/v5.5.0...v5.6.0

the implementation of Audited.store is changed, Audit.store is already cleaned up in the before_action step of the controller leading the change being audited even if SomeModel.auditing_enabled is false. Post-action the store is still emptied.

In practice we get the following changes:

  test 'can skip auditing' do
    book_copy = book_copies(:poe_poetry_one)

    BookCopy.auditing_enabled = false

    # assertion holds in audited 5.3.0, 5.4.0 and 5.5.0
    # assertion does not hold in 5.6.0
    assert_no_difference 'Audited::Audit.count' do
      patch(
        book_copy_path(book_copy.id),
        params: {
          book_copy: {
            state: 'acceptable'
          }
        }
      )
    end

    assert_response :success

    # Assertions holds in audited 5.3.0
    # but not in audited 5.4.0 or 5.5.0 or 5.6.0
    assert_equal false, BookCopy.auditing_enabled
  end

So in particular in 5.6.0 onwards the change is audited despite setting BookCopy.auditing_enabled = false.