Feature - Integration with Open OnDemand Files App for File Selection

[abujeda]

Feature Description

Enable users to select files for upload through the Open OnDemand Files app, which is a generic local filesystem browser deployed on the same server as OnDemand Loop. This integration would provide users with a familiar, comprehensive interface to browse and select files from their local filesystem within the Open OnDemand environment.

Proposed Solution

The integration should leverage a secure token-based mechanism where OnDemand Loop generates and sends a request_token to the Open OnDemand Files app. This token would:

• Identify that the request originated from OnDemand Loop
• Associate the file selection with a specific project and upload bundle

The workflow should allow seamless transition between OnDemand Loop and the OOD Files app, enabling users to browse their filesystem, select files or directories, and return those selections back to OnDemand Loop for processing.

The token will be passed back from OOD with the file metadata payload.

Additional Context

The Open OnDemand Files app is already deployed on the same server infrastructure as OnDemand Loop, making it a natural integration point for file selection. This integration would enhance the user experience by:

• Providing a robust filesystem browser with advanced navigation capabilities
• Maintaining consistency with other Open OnDemand applications
• Reducing the need to implement custom file browsing functionality within OnDemand Loop

[whorka]

We tried running this through codex CLI with gpt-5.1:

Read the README.md and Development Guide which is in the docs/guide/content to get an understanding of the application since we want to add a new feature.

Things we need:
- Add a configuration feature flag as a property on the ConfigurationSingleton to enable/disable a new file browser picking integration feature (until the integration becomes feasible in OOD 4.x, we need to continue to rely on the local file picker).
  - We need to generate an identifier for project+upload bundle as a base64 encoding of a colon-delimited concatenation of the project id and upload bundle id.
  - If the flag is enabled we need the Select Files button on the Project Details Page, Upload Bundle Tab (identified by t('.button_add_files_title') in `application/app/views/projects/show/_upload_actions.html.erb`) to open the Open OnDemand file browser and pass in the URL Get parameters a token named `files_select_target_token` containing the identifier for project+upload bundle.
  - Add new ood_upload service to manage this functionality.

Go ahead and implement it.

The result was that it generated patches but said it could not edit the code directly due to missing python helper scripts (apply_patch/apply_edits.py)

We can try again with different instructions, or with Claude Code.

[whorka]

We got this working with Codex, but there were additional prerequisite features that needed to be implemented:

• Feature - Add support to configure Open OnDemand features during development #556
  • needed because we need to configure OOD File Browser behavior which requires inserting OOD config files
• Features - Support using OOD nightly build #559
  • needed because the OOD FIle Browser integration requires a feature not yet available in any released version of OOD