feat: prevent requests before digital release

[h2nkm5vydg-oss]

Description

This is an opt-in (disabled by default) global restriction for requests involving media that has not yet been released. I've decided to intentionally focus on the smallest implementation to start addressing #1346 and can continue with any follow up MRs if needed based on feedback. This work does overlap with #1739 but I'm happy to collaborate (can wait until that PR is merged or combine the two).

When Enable Release Date Restrictions is enabled:

• Movies become requestable after TMDB lists a Digital release dated today or earlier in any region.
• TV seasons become requestable when their TMDB air date arrives.
• Theatrical and physical movie releases are not considered.
• Media without a valid Digital release date or season air date remains requestable (Can do a follow up to disable movies without a digital release date as well)
• Users with the Manage Requests permission can bypass the restriction.
• Exiting requests will remain unchanged.
• Exposed through the main and public settings APIs, frontend settings defaults, General Settings, and OpenAPI.

AI Disclosure: OpenAI Codex was used for codebase analysis, implementation, test creation, documentation, and drafting this description. I reviewed the submitted changes and understand the implementation.

How Has This Been Tested?

Tested on the branch:

• Full server test suite: 170 tests passed.
• Unit tests cover Digital releases across multiple regions, current and future dates, theatrical and physical release exclusion, invalid or missing dates, TV season air dates, disabled restrictions, and manager bypass.
• Request integration tests cover standard and 4K movies, mixed TV seasons, seasons: all, newly added seasons, database mutation prevention, existing request-management operations, and requests made on behalf of another user.
• Server and client TypeScript checks passed.
• Production client and server builds completed successfully.
• ESLint and Prettier checks passed.
• OpenAPI parsing passed.
• Translation extraction completed without producing additional changes.

Screenshots / Logs

Settings -> General

Admin's Perspective (Movie):

User's Perspective (Movie):

Admin's Perspective (TV Show):

User's Perspective (TV Show - Unreleased season's button toggle will be greyed out):

Checklist:

• I have read and followed the contribution guidelines.
• Disclosed any use of AI (see our policy)
• I have updated the documentation accordingly.
• All new and existing tests passed.
• Successful build pnpm build
• Translation keys pnpm i18n:extract
• Database migration (not required)

Summary by CodeRabbit

New Features

• Added an optional release-date restriction setting, disabled by default.
• Blocks requests for unreleased movies and TV seasons before their digital release or air date.
• Request-management users can bypass restrictions.
• Existing requests and items without valid release dates remain unaffected.
• Newly added unreleased seasons are validated when editing requests.

Documentation

• Added guidance explaining release-date restrictions.

API

• Documented the setting and related 403 error response.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: 1076a956-ce90-44d5-9148-b4a4e8cf812c

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 505bb68 and c0be4a4.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• seerr-api.yml
• server/constants/error.ts
• src/i18n/locale/en.json

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (3)

• server/constants/error.ts
• src/i18n/locale/en.json
• seerr-api.yml

Included review availability: Your plan includes up to 10 reviews per rolling hour; 9 remain after this review.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Release-date restrictions now control movie and TV requests. The setting defaults to disabled, supports manager bypasses, validates TMDB release data, returns MEDIA_NOT_RELEASED errors, and includes server, API, UI, test, and documentation updates.

Changes

Release restriction flow

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Release eligibility evaluation server/utils/releaseEligibility.ts, server/utils/releaseEligibility.test.ts	Validates dates and evaluates digital movie releases and TV season air dates.
Request enforcement server/entity/MediaRequest.ts, server/routes/request.ts, server/constants/error.ts	Blocks restricted movie and TV requests, allows MANAGE_REQUESTS bypasses, and returns 403 MEDIA_NOT_RELEASED responses.
Request restriction validation server/routes/request.test.ts	Tests future, unknown, disabled, bypass, 4K, mixed-season, and update-request behavior.
Settings and API surface server/lib/settings/index.ts, server/interfaces/api/settingsInterfaces.ts, seerr-api.yml, src/components/Settings/SettingsMain/index.tsx, src/context/SettingsContext.tsx, src/pages/_app.tsx, src/i18n/locale/en.json, docs/using-seerr/settings/general.md	Adds the setting with a default of false, exposes it through public settings, adds the UI control and localization, and documents the behavior.

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~45 minutes

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to c0be4

This opt-in release-date request restriction is merge-ready after normal checks and review; no actionable merge-blocking risk remains.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant RequestRoute
  participant MediaRequest
  participant TheMovieDb
  RequestRoute->>MediaRequest: Create or update request
  MediaRequest->>TheMovieDb: Fetch release metadata
  TheMovieDb-->>MediaRequest: Return release dates
  MediaRequest->>MediaRequest: Evaluate restriction
  MediaRequest-->>RequestRoute: Return result or restriction error
  RequestRoute-->>RequestRoute: Send 403 MEDIA_NOT_RELEASED

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Possibly related PRs

• seerr-team/seerr#1855: Both PRs propagate a settings flag through server state and the UI.
• seerr-team/seerr#3265: Both PRs modify TV request-season update handling and its tests.

Suggested reviewers: fallenbagel, 0xsysr3ll

Poem

A rabbit checks each release date,

Future seasons must now wait.
Managers may pass the gate,
Unknown dates remain requestable.
The checkbox starts at false—
Tests guard every request call.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly describes the primary change: blocking requests before media release dates.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

---

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 4

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@docs/using-seerr/settings/general.md`:
- Around line 76-81: Update the Release Date Restrictions documentation to
describe the existing “Allow Requests with Unknown Release Dates” setting:
unknown movie digital-release or TV season air dates remain requestable when
enabled and are blocked when disabled, while preserving the documented behavior
for valid dates and existing requests.

In `@server/utils/releaseEligibility.ts`:
- Around line 21-24: Update release restriction evaluation so unknown release
dates honor a new unknown-release-date option: add the option to
ReleaseRestrictionOptions, block unknown eligibility when disabled in
evaluateReleaseRestriction, and pass the configured setting from MediaRequest.
At server/utils/releaseEligibility.test.ts:120-132, cover both enabled and
disabled policies; at server/routes/request.test.ts:240-253, verify a movie with
an unknown date returns MEDIA_NOT_RELEASED when disabled.
- Around line 79-80: Update the digital-release check in release eligibility to
compare each validated release calendar date with today’s calendar date, rather
than rejecting based on timestamp time-of-day; allow releases occurring later on
the current day while preserving rejection of earlier dates. Add a test covering
a same-day release with a later time.

In `@src/components/Settings/SettingsMain/index.tsx`:
- Around line 65-67: Update the releaseDateRestrictionEnabledTip text in
src/components/Settings/SettingsMain/index.tsx (lines 65-67) and the
corresponding English catalog entry in src/i18n/locale/en.json (lines 1041-1042)
to say “Digital release in any region” instead of “worldwide Digital release,”
preserving the rest of the restriction description.

🪄 Autofix

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: 6b6190fe-344f-4d2c-8221-fa6ff4fd1f78

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 090c659 and 629d1e6.

📒 Files selected for processing (14)

• docs/using-seerr/settings/general.md
• seerr-api.yml
• server/constants/error.ts
• server/entity/MediaRequest.ts
• server/interfaces/api/settingsInterfaces.ts
• server/lib/settings/index.ts
• server/routes/request.test.ts
• server/routes/request.ts
• server/utils/releaseEligibility.test.ts
• server/utils/releaseEligibility.ts
• src/components/Settings/SettingsMain/index.tsx
• src/context/SettingsContext.tsx
• src/i18n/locale/en.json
• src/pages/_app.tsx

[github-actions]

This pull request has merge conflicts. Please resolve the conflicts so the PR can be successfully reviewed and merged.