Automatically restore page content after reauthentication instead of requiring manual refresh

Release notes

Problem to solve

When a SAML session expires on GitLab.com, users experience significant friction when working with multiple tabs:

1. Session expires after 24 hours (or configured timeout)
2. Work item pages show "This work item is not available. It either doesn't exist or you don't have permission to view it."
3. User reauthenticates in one tab
4. Authentication modal disappears across all tabs
5. However, most tabs still show blank "work item not found" pages
6. User must manually refresh each tab to restore content
7. Users lose context of what was open since titles and content have disappeared

This creates substantial friction for users who keep multiple GitLab tabs open for reference, especially those with SAML SSO that requires daily reauthentication.

Proposal

After a user reauthenticates in any tab, all other GitLab tabs should automatically:

1. Detect the authentication state change (via storage events or similar mechanism)
2. Retry the failed API requests that resulted in "not found" errors
3. Re-render the page content without requiring manual refresh
4. Restore the user's view to the state before the session expired

Intended users

• Sasha (Software Developer)
• Delaney (Development Team Lead)
• Parker (Product Manager)

Feature Usage Metrics

Does this feature require an audit event?