[alezconsultant]

Description

Removes the Django setting ENABLE_COMPETENCY_MASTERY_TRACKING and the guard it controlled in _record_competency_status (lms/djangoapps/grades/subsection_grade.py). A learner's competency criterion status is now recorded on every subsection grade write, on both the single-grade path and the bulk path, with no setting to switch it on.

The setting was added by #39179 as a short-lived gate while the feature was validated. In a deployment with no competency criteria, the call into openedx-core (record_graded_object_statuses) runs one SELECT on the criteria table that returns no rows, writes nothing, and queues no roll-up task, so the gate saved one query per scored subsection grade write and added a configuration step an operator could miss. The transaction blocks, the roll-up enqueue on commit, and the grade-calculated event are unchanged; the setting never gated them.

The two tests that asserted setting-off behavior are removed, and the override_settings decorators that switched the setting on for the remaining competency tests are gone, so those tests now run against the unconditional path.

User roles affected: Operator. Learners and course authors see no change.

Supporting information

• Ticket: [Follow-up BE] Remove the ENABLE_COMPETENCY_MASTERY_TRACKING setting openedx-core#924
• Parent ticket: [BE] Record learner’s criterion status for grade openedx-core#701. Its scenario 11, "An operator can decline competency tracking entirely", is retired by this change.
• The discussion that led to this removal is on feat: record competency status in the same save as a subsection grade #39179, where the reviewer expected the setting to be gone before the Willow cut and the product owner agreed.

Testing instructions

There is no manual QA path; the change removes a setting and a guard, and the behavior it exposes is already covered by the grades unit tests. Covered by:

• lms/djangoapps/grades/tests/test_subsection_grade.py (SubsectionGradeCompetencyStatusTest and SubsectionGradeCompetencyIntegrationTest), which assert that the competency write runs on both grade paths without any setting, that a status write failure rolls the grade back, and that a roll-up is queued only after commit.
• lms/djangoapps/grades/tests/test_api.py::OverrideSubsectionGradeTests::test_override_without_existing_grade_records_competency_status
• lms/djangoapps/grades/rest_api/v1/tests/test_gradebook_views.py::GradebookBulkUpdateViewTest::test_override_for_unattempted_learner_records_competency_status

To check the removal by hand, grep -rn ENABLE_COMPETENCY_MASTERY_TRACKING lms cms openedx common returns nothing.

Other information

• Operators who deploy from master and never set the flag now run the competency write on every subsection grade write. Any ENABLE_COMPETENCY_MASTERY_TRACKING value left in a settings file is ignored. A competency storage failure fails the grade write, as the design in openedx-core's ADR 0004 (competency mastery concurrency) requires; there is no switch for this.
• Each scored subsection grade write now runs one additional SELECT. The hard-coded query counts in lms/djangoapps/grades/tests/test_tasks.py and test_course_grade_factory.py are raised accordingly.
• The setting shipped in no named release (added 2026-11-02 on master), so no deprecation ticket is needed under OEP-21.
• No dependency change: the code already imports record_graded_object_statuses from openedx-core 1.21.0, which is the current pin.
• This change does not depend on any other open PR.
• AI usage: written with Claude Code (Claude Fable 5.1); reviewed and tested by the author.

Related to openedx/openedx-core#924

[openedx-webhooks]

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[mgwozdz-unicon]

Claude and I both approve.