[degwinthegreat]

Problem

ActiveRecord::Relation#load is expected to return the relation itself (self), not the records:

https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v8.1.3/activerecord/lib/active_record/relation.rb#L1193-L1206

# Causes the records to be loaded from the database if they have not
# been loaded already. You can use this if for some reason you need
# to explicitly load some records before actually using them. The
# return value is the relation itself, not the records.
#
#   Post.where(published: true).load # => #<ActiveRecord::Relation>
def load(&block)
  if !loaded? || scheduled?
    @records = exec_queries(&block)
    @loaded = true
  end

  self
end

Employee.all.load                     #=> Employee::ActiveRecord_Relation
Employee.valid_at(Time.current).load  #=> Array

However, the bitemporal override of #load ended with records.each. Since Relation#each is delegated to records (the loaded Array) by ActiveRecord::Delegation, records.each returns the Array — which leaked out as the return value of #load when valid_datetime or transaction_datetime is set:

https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v8.1.3/activerecord/lib/active_record/relation/delegation.rb#L100-L103

delegate :to_xml, :encode_with, :length, :each, :join, :intersect?,
         :[], :&, :|, :+, :-, :sample, :reverse, :rotate, :compact, :in_groups, :in_groups_of,
         :to_sentence, :to_fs, :to_formatted_s, :as_json,
         :shuffle, :split, :slice, :index, :rindex, to: :records

Fix

Return records (the relation returned by super) at the end of #load, matching Active Record's contract that load returns self.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[kymmt90]

👍