Do you use feature flags ?

What are feature flags ?

When adding new features to production, problems often happen and their impact can range from simple bugs to a whole application shutdown.

Feature flags provide a way to: - Roll out features to specific users or groups of users instead of everyone - Enable/Disable features in real-time without altering your code or rolling back your release

Usage of feature flags in a Rails application

Install and configure the rollout gem

The rollout gem is based on `Redis`, so we need to have it installed as well.

Add gem 'redis'  and gem 'rollout' to your Gemfile, and run bundle install.

Create an initializer file

# config/initializers/rollout.rb

$redis = Redis.new $rollout = Rollout.new($redis)

Define our users group

Users groups are the list of users you’ll be rolling out features to.

# config/initializers/rollout.rb

$rollout = Rollout.new(Redis.new) 

$rollout.define_group(:admins) { |user| user.admin? }

$rollout.define_group(:testers) { |user| user.tester? }

$rollout.define_group(:pros) { |user| user.membership == ‘pro’ }

Roll out a new chat feature

Add the feature related code.

# First, check if the current user has access to the feature if $rollout.active?(:chat, current_user)   # chat feature code end

Let’s say we first want our testers only, to have this feature.  Run the following code in the rails console: $rollout.activate_group(:chat, :testers) Now, only the testers can access the new chat feature.

What if we now want to release the feature to our paying users ? Head to the rails console again and run this: $rollout.activate_group(:chat, :pros). That’s it. The pros users can now access the chat feature.

A problem ? Let’s disable that feature until we fix it. Run the following code in the console, and you’re done: $rollout.deactivate_all(:chat)

Learn more about the `rollout` gem here.

Feature flags libraries in other languages/frameworks

Thank you for reading.