[#20] - Quick fix to the spotlight selection process

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -4,4 +4,7 @@ All notable changes to Atlas Insight are documented here.
 
 ## Unreleased
 
-- Changes land here before release tagging.
+### Fixed
+
+- **Spotlight gap on selection failure** — `sync_spotlight_watches` now falls back to the most recent pick when no current-week record exists, preventing the daily safety-net task from clearing watches when the weekly selection task fails or hasn't run yet. Previously this left the site with no spotlight until manual intervention.
+- `select_repo_of_week` Celery task now retries up to 3 times (5 min apart) on transient failures before giving up.

backend/apps/analysis/tasks.py

@@ -887,7 +887,7 @@ def _dir_size(path: str) -> int:
     logger.info('Clone eviction complete: %d clones removed', evicted)
 
 
-@shared_task
+@shared_task(autoretry_for=(Exception,), max_retries=3, default_retry_delay=300)
 def select_repo_of_week():
     """Weekly task: pick a public repo for the spotlight using a fair-rotation, weighted algorithm.
 

backend/apps/analysis/tests/test_tasks.py

@@ -242,6 +242,39 @@ def test_preserves_manual_watch_on_unrelated_repo(self, public_repo, completed_r
         assert manual.is_watched is True
 
 
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# sync_spotlight_watches — fallback behaviour
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+@pytest.mark.django_db
+class TestSyncSpotlightWatches:
+    def test_preserves_previous_spotlight_when_no_current_week_pick(self, db):
+        """Daily sync must not clear the old spotlight when weekly selection hasn't run yet."""
+        from datetime import date, timedelta
+
+        from apps.repositories.models import AnalysisRun, RepoOfTheWeek, Repository
+        from apps.repositories.spotlight import sync_spotlight_watches
+
+        repo = Repository.objects.create(
+            url='https://github.com/test/prev',
+            owner='test',
+            name='prev',
+            is_watched=True,
+            watch_reason='spotlight',
+        )
+        AnalysisRun.objects.create(repo=repo, status='completed')
+        today = date.today()
+        prev_week = today - timedelta(days=today.weekday() + 7)
+        RepoOfTheWeek.objects.create(repo=repo, week_start=prev_week, pick_number=1)
+
+        # No current-week record exists — simulates failed weekly selection
+        sync_spotlight_watches()
+
+        repo.refresh_from_db()
+        assert repo.is_watched is True
+        assert repo.watch_reason == 'spotlight'
+
+
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # reanalyze_watched_repos
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

backend/apps/repositories/spotlight.py

@@ -17,6 +17,10 @@ def sync_spotlight_watches(week_start: date | None = None) -> None:
         .select_related('repo')
         .first()
     )
+    if current is None:
+        # No pick yet for this week — fall back to most recent so daily sync
+        # doesn't clear watches when weekly selection hasn't run or failed.
+        current = RepoOfTheWeek.objects.select_related('repo').first()
     current_repo_id = current.repo_id if current else None
 
     Repository.objects.filter(watch_reason='spotlight').exclude(pk=current_repo_id).update(