fix: Force close app then open, home page displays instead of onboarding modal

[nkdengineer]

Explanation of Change

fix: Force close app then open, home page displays instead of onboarding modal

Fixed Issues

$ #96378
PROPOSAL: #96378 (comment)

Tests

1. Open app login with new account (gmail without + or gmail with +)
2. During the onboarding modal force close the app
3. Open the app
4. Verify that the onboarding flow appears

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

QA Steps

Same as test

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
• I followed proper code patterns (see Reviewing the code)
  • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
  • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
  • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
• If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
• I followed the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
• I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
• If a new CSS style is added I verified that:
  • A similar style doesn't already exist
  • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
• If new assets were added or existing ones were modified, I verified that:
  • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
  • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
• If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
• If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
• If the PR modifies a component related to any of the existing Storybook stories, I tested and verified all stories for that component are still working as expected.
• If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Screen.Recording.2026-07-30.at.16.10.59.mov

Android: mWeb Chrome

Screen.Recording.2026-07-30.at.16.16.55.mov

iOS: Native

Screen.Recording.2026-07-30.at.16.15.12.mov

iOS: mWeb Safari

Screen.Recording.2026-07-30.at.16.18.09.mov

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screen.Recording.2026-07-30.at.16.18.59.mov

[melvin-bot]

@cretadn22 Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

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[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Wait for auth routes before resetting onboarding

When AuthScreens has just mounted after a fresh sign-in, the NavigationContainer can already be "ready" from the earlier PublicScreens stack, so this promise resolves immediately. Unlike waitForProtectedRoutes, it does not verify that the protected stack that registers OnboardingModalNavigator has been installed before startOnboardingFlow() calls resetRoot; in that auth-screen swap race the reset can be built from the public TAB_NAVIGATOR state and the onboarding route is not registered, leaving new users on home/sign-in instead of the onboarding modal. Please wait for protected route registration (or an equivalent onboarding-route registration check) before starting the flow.

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