fix: Update Search Index after Tag update by jesperhodge · Pull Request #530 · openedx/openedx-core

jesperhodge · 2026-04-02T21:34:09Z

Description

This implements a fix for openedx/modular-learning#258 .

The issue was that after you rename a tag on a taxonomy from the taxonomy frontend in Course Authoring, the Meilisearch search index for associated tagged object does not get updated. That results in some outdated data being shown in the libraries -> tags search filter.

Use of AI

I used AI to implement some of the code, especially the introduction of the Celery task. I used it to help with tests as well, but carefully reviewed everything, and followed a red-green TDD process with the tests to ensure correctness.

I only use AI for support in targeted spots rather than have an agent just write code for me.

I have tested manually as well.

Testing Instructions

Go to Course-Authoring
Go to the libraries tab
Go to the detail view of one library
Choose a library block
Click on "manage tags"
Apply a tag to the block that you want to test renaming on -> click save
At the top, under "All content", you find a search bar. Right next to the search input field, there is a filter dropdown called "Tags". Open it
When you expand the taxonomy of the tag you added, you should find that tag there now - with its current name
In a separate tab, go to Course Authoring -> Taxonomies
Open the detail view for the taxonomy whose tag you applied
Find the tag in the table and click "Rename"
Rename the tag to something else, and click save
Go back to the tab where you have the library with the tag applied
Reload the page
In the "Tags" filter dropdown, now you should see the renamed tag under its new name, not its old name

openedx-webhooks · 2026-04-02T21:34:16Z

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jesperhodge · 2026-04-06T14:55:38Z

Technical Findings

Here are some helpful insights from our slack conversation as to how this can be implemented.

I'm just going to post the conversation here.

"What repo does meilisearch originate from?
19 repliesBraden MacDonald  [5:44 PM]
Can you clarify the question? I don't think you're asking for https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch right?
Tyler Bain  [5:46 PM]
Probably not - I’m looking into an issue where we need to update the search index after a tag update; openedx/modular-learning#258, I was curious what repo we have that either has the code for it, or the management for our instance of meilisearch is saved?
Braden MacDonald  [5:47 PM]
OK, we use Meilisearch for a few different things in a few different repos, but what you're looking for is probably https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/blob/master/openedx/core/djangoapps/content/search/handlers.py
Tyler Bain  [5:47 PM]
Ah! Nice, thank you! 🙂
Braden MacDonald  [5:48 PM]
The CONTENT_OBJECT_ASSOCIATIONS_CHANGED event seems specifically related to tags
Tyler Bain  [5:49 PM]
Excellent, thanks for shortening that research, I appreciate it
Jesper Hodge  [5:49 PM]
For curiosity, is that an event that should be triggered via the event bus?
[5:50 PM]Or just django internal inside CMS
Braden MacDonald  [5:59 PM]
Mmm, I am not sure tbh. But since the events are defined in openedx-events, I think that may mean they use the event bus?
For your purposes the details of the transport layer hopefully don't matter too much though ?Jesper Hodge  [6:09 PM]
Apparently not, all the better.
I see you can use this like here https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/blob/e3ab6345b633094f322cf208fd8d6c074[…]0a/openedx/core/djangoapps/content_libraries/signal_handlers.py
Jesper Hodge  [1:33 PM]
Hi @Braden, CONTENT_OBJECT_ASSOCIATIONS_CHANGED is a signal handler for one object. A tag that's renamed could be applied to very many objects.
The content.search.api method used for this update is def upsert_content_object_tags_index_doc:
https://github.com/openedx/openedx-platform/blob/76462f1e5fa9b37d2621ad7ad19514b403908970/openedx/core/djangoapps/content/search/api.py#L908.
In order to not send thousands of search index updates, I assume I will need to write a new method for this api that batch updates docs -> searchable_doc_tags here?
Does that approach sound correct to you?Braden MacDonald  [1:39 PM]
I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Tags are renamed rarely and as long as the updates are processed asynchronously by a worker, it may be totally fine to have thousands of events and updates ?
Jesper Hodge  [1:42 PM]
I wouldn't know, because I don't know how meilisearch handles this, if it's too much load or if it's trivial. Do you know @Dave Ormsbee ?
Braden MacDonald  [1:46 PM]
It would be most efficient as a global update using a RHAI function to just rename all instances of a tag directly, but single-item index updates are still very fast. The delay is usually going to be more on the Open edX side processing and building the updated index values, not on the Meilisearch side of updating the index.
[1:47 PM]And in this case, since we're strictly processing the tags and not re-generating the entire document for each changed entity, the Open edX side should also be relatively fast.
Jesper Hodge  [1:47 PM]
Okay sounds fine then
Braden MacDonald  [1:47 PM]
You could mention the RHAI function approach in a comment, but for now I think we want to avoid tying ourselves too much more to Meilisearch-specific features on the backend.
Jesper Hodge  [1:47 PM]
Thanks that helps
Braden MacDonald  [2:55 PM]
Here is the guidance on emitting many events from the openedx-events repo: "we recommend that simple handlers are synchronous and the sender of the event should send the event(s) from an async celery task if it is expected to result in a lot of handlers being called."
"

Reset the requirements to their state before I ran make upgrade, thus fixing version upgrade problems; and then run make compile-requirements to install openedx-events without upgrading other packages

…ates-meilisearch

jesperhodge · 2026-04-08T15:32:45Z

Note to reviewers (e.g. @bradenmacdonald ): I'll implement this as an async celery task now and add a few small performance improvements.

jesperhodge · 2026-04-08T15:55:13Z

Manual testing confirms that after the refactor to a celery task, the signal is still sent and received.

ormsbee

A couple of minor requests. Also, please bump the version for the repo and rebase + squash your commits. Thank you!

ormsbee · 2026-04-08T18:12:02Z

src/openedx_tagging/tasks.py

+
+@shared_task
+def emit_content_object_associations_changed_for_tag_task(tag_id: int) -> int:
+    """Emit content association changed events for all objects linked to the given tag id."""


Please use the docstring to expand a little on what's going on here, and how it fits into the bigger picture. It might not be intuitive to folks that we're doing this for the benefit of search indexing that is happening at a higher level in openedx-platform.

ormsbee · 2026-04-08T18:23:12Z

src/openedx_tagging/signal_handlers.py

+        return
+
+    transaction.on_commit(
+        lambda: emit_content_object_associations_changed_for_tag_task.delay(tag_id)


This code looks correct, but as a general practice, please use partials instead lambdas for this kind of thing: https://adamj.eu/tech/2022/08/22/use-partial-with-djangos-transaction-on-commit/

feat: add signal handler

8e215e2

openedx-webhooks added the open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U label Apr 2, 2026

openedx-webhooks added this to Contributions Apr 2, 2026

github-project-automation bot moved this to Needs Triage in Contributions Apr 2, 2026

feat: register signal handlers

bad3ed4

mphilbrick211 moved this from Needs Triage to Waiting on Author in Contributions Apr 6, 2026

fix: send correct signal

94c34ab

jesperhodge changed the title ~~feat: add signal handler~~ fix: Update Search Index after Tag update Apr 6, 2026

jesperhodge added 4 commits April 6, 2026 19:37

chore: add requirements

52f999c

fix: requirements

8696520

Reset the requirements to their state before I ran make upgrade, thus fixing version upgrade problems; and then run make compile-requirements to install openedx-events without upgrading other packages

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into jhodge/tag-change-upd…

6d74d7a

…ates-meilisearch

fix: tests

6df0622

jesperhodge requested a review from bradenmacdonald April 7, 2026 21:25

chore: improve logging

ca99ba6

jesperhodge marked this pull request as ready for review April 7, 2026 21:39

refactor: make tag event sending async

18a993e

ormsbee requested changes Apr 8, 2026

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fix: Update Search Index after Tag update#530

fix: Update Search Index after Tag update#530
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Description

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Testing Instructions

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Technical Findings

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