2054501 - Gate Auto Tab Grouping on locale (exclude fr) and the Smart Tab Groups opt-in

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: Machine Learning: Frontend, enhancement, P1)

Description

[:jlewis]

Gate both the smartwindow-group-tabs-button visibility and the clustering path on:

• A locale allowlist that excludes the French (fr) UI locale.
• The on-device smart-tab-grouping backend being enabled/allowed/opted-in via browser.tabs.groups.smart.*, rather than instantiating SmartTabGroupingManager unconditionally.

Define the consent story: whether the feature requires the existing smart-groups opt-in or its own.

Region/geo gating is explicitly out of scope for now - locale only.

Tests: button hidden for the fr locale; button hidden when the smart-groups backend is disabled or not opted in.

Comment 1

[:jlewis]

Attachment: Bug 2054501 - Gate Auto Tab Grouping on en-* locale and on-device ML

Comment 2

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/2db765f57591
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/6098bf125fc3
Gate Auto Tab Grouping on en-* locale and on-device ML r=Gijs,rrando

Comment 3

[amarc]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/6098bf125fc3

Comment 4

[:jlewis]

Attachment: Bug 2054501 - Gate Auto Tab Grouping on en-* locale and on-device ML

Building Auto Tab Grouping 'v0' - largely exploratory and gated behind a pref
No finalized designs yet, but there is a demo: https://auto-tab-grouping.netlify.app sw0626

browser.smartwindow.autoTabGrouping.enabled
browser.ml.enable + SmartTabGroupingManager.isAllowed

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D312297

Comment 5

[Phabricator Automation]

firefox-beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined/Reason for urgency: Core part of Smart Window 'Auto Tab Grouping' feature.
• Code covered by automated testing?: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly?: no
• Needs manual QE testing?: yes
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: 1) Set prefs to true:

browser.smartwindow.autoTabGrouping.enabled
SmartTabGroupingManager.isEnabled

Open Smart Window > open new Auto Tab Grouping button > verify menu opens and works as expected

• Risk associated with taking this patch: medium
• Explanation of risk level: Includes augmentation to the Auto Tab Grouping feature, but is pref gated for its v0.
• String changes made/needed?: Strings are only in locales-preview
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 6

[Pulsebot]

https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/5d1f76587b17
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/cbb48b390688

Comment 7

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Verified as fixed in our latest Beta 154.0b10 and our latest Nightly 155.0a1 (2026-08-12)