Managing Feature Flags

Abstract

Managing Feature Flags

For almost as long as we’ve written software programs, we’ve included ways to control what those programs do at runtime via configuration options or flags. Feature flags are a modern application of this concept, focused on accelerating software delivery. What began in the late 2000s as a way for fast-moving software teams to work on half-finished code without disrupting their users has evolved into a standard practice for modern product delivery teams who want to deliver functionality in small increments and learn from their users.

In this book, we’ll look at the history of feature flags and, more importantly, learn how teams can successfully apply these techniques. We’ll examine different types of feature flags and what makes them different. We’ll see some critical code-level techniques to keep our feature flagging code manageable, and we’ll explore how to keep the number of flags in our code base to a manageable level.