CheCluster's cleaned up fields are not getting reflected on DevWorkspaceOperatorConfig

[rohanKanojia]

Describe the bug

Originally posted by @dkwon17 in eclipse-che/che-operator#2004 (comment)

It seems that when we clean up some fields from CheCluster CustomResource, they are not getting reflected in managed DevWorkspaceOperatorConfig instance properly.

This was observed during review of eclipse-che/che-operator#2004 but it seemed general issue affecting other fields too (see eclipse-che/che-operator#2004 (comment)).

Che version

7.106@latest

Steps to reproduce

1. Install che-operator
2. In CheCluster configuration, set:

    storage:
      perUserStrategyPvcConfig:
        storageAccessMode:
          - ReadWriteMany
      pvcStrategy: per-user

3. Then remove perUserStrategyPvcConfig:

  storage:
    pvcStrategy: per-user

4. Check DWOC, it still has ReadWriteMany:

apiVersion: controller.devfile.io/v1alpha1
config:
  workspace:
    storageAccessMode:
      - ReadWriteMany

Expected behavior

Whenever CheCluster configuration fields are cleaned up, they should be reflected in managed DevWorkspaceOperatorConfig CustomResource as well.

Runtime

OpenShift

Screenshots

No response

Installation method

chectl/latest

Environment

Linux

Eclipse Che Logs

Additional context

No response

[rohanKanojia]

I debugged this issue, and the root cause seems to be related to the workspace strategy PVC config field:

https://github.com/eclipse-che/che-operator/blob/2a5a310c52dad711d4ebe398f9e20f21b8c8996e/pkg/deploy/dev-workspace-config/dev_workspace_config.go#L174-L176

When perUserStrategyPvcConfig is removed, pvc becomes nil, so this function skips updating workspaceConfig. As a result, the previous StorageAccessMode (e.g. ReadWriteMany) remains unchanged instead of reverting to the default ReadWriteOnce.

I think we can explicitly apply default values (e.g. ReadWriteOnce) to workspaceConfig before checking the PVC config. This ensures that when a PVC config is removed, the workspace configuration resets to a known default state instead of retaining stale values.