Add loading check before showing empty Studio state

[ivan-ottinger]

Related issues

• Fixes STU-971

Proposed Changes

• ensure the EmptyStudio does not render while local sites are still loading

Testing Instructions

Basically, it should not be possible to reproduce the STU-971 issue anymore.

1. Check out the PR branch and build the app with npm install && npm start.
2. Start the app with some local sites created already.
3. There EmptyStudio component should not render at all.

Pre-merge Checklist

• Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

[ivan-ottinger]

We could also consider adding some loading screen, e.g. with a larger spinner (https://wordpress.github.io/gutenberg/?path=/docs/components-spinner--docs), but that would be good to have a design input on and could be handled in a separate task. What do you think?

[github-actions]

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing 2c06dc2 vs trunk

site-editor

Metric	trunk	2c06dc2	Diff	Change
load	13039.00 ms	10769.00 ms	-2270.00 ms	🟢 -17.4%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	2c06dc2	Diff	Change
siteCreation	12006.00 ms	12053.00 ms	+47.00 ms	🔴 0.4%
siteStartup	3986.00 ms	3941.00 ms	-45.00 ms	🟢 -1.1%

---

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change

[epeicher]

Thanks for solving this @ivan-ottinger! I have tested it, and I cannot see the EmptyStudi component on start. LGTM!

CleanShot.2025-11-05.at.19.17.49.mp4

[ivan-ottinger]

Thank you for the review and testing, Roberto!