A better and safer way to deliver software using feature flags
5 min read
As a software developer, you know how challenging it can be to deliver new features to your users. You have to deal with the complexity of code, the uncertainty of user feedback, and the risk of breaking your existing functionality or introducing bugs.
The Problem with Traditional Rollouts
Traditionally, you would use a deployment-based approach to release new features. This means that you would push code and create new deployments every time you want to introduce a new version of your application. You also have to wait for a release window or a feature freeze to deploy your code to production.
This approach has several drawbacks. First, it slows down your development process and reduces your agility. You have to wait for the right time and conditions to deploy your code, which can delay the feedback loop and limit your experimentation capabilities. Second, it increases your risk and uncertainty. You have to deploy your code to all your users at once, without knowing how they will react or if they will encounter any issues. If something goes wrong, you have to roll back your entire deployment, which can be time-consuming, error-prone, and disruptive.
Feature Flags - A better approach to releases
Feature flags can help in improving the software delivery process. Feature flags are a way of controlling the visibility and behaviour of features without changing the source code. They allow you to toggle features on or off at any point in time, even after you have deployed your code. This means that you can deploy your code to production as soon as it is ready, without worrying about breaking your existing functionality or introducing bugs.
Feature flags also enable you to customize your features for different user segments, such as beta testers, early adopters, or premium customers. You can use feature flags to run A/B tests or multivariate tests on your new features and measure their impact on key metrics, such as user satisfaction, retention, conversion, or revenue. You can also use feature flags to perform canary releases or gradual rollouts, where you expose your new features to a small percentage of your users and monitor their feedback and performance before rolling them out to everyone.
Feature flags are a powerful tool that can help you deliver better software faster and safer. They can also improve your user experience, data-driven decisions, and experimentation capabilities.
Enhance feature flags using Flagsmith
Implementing feature flags can be challenging if you don’t have the right tools and practices. This is where some amazing tools like Flagsmith can be a big help.
Flagsmith is an open-source feature flag and remote config service. It helps create and manage feature flags across various platforms such as web, mobile, or server-side applications. It also helps change the values of features without deploying new code. You also get flexibility in your deployment strategies such as A/B deployments, Canary rollouts and you can use it for self-hosted deployments.
Flagsmith has a user-friendly web interface that allows you to create and manage feature flags easily. It lets you see all your feature flags in one place, along with their descriptions, states, environments, and segments. It also enables you to create new feature flags with just a few clicks or edit existing ones with ease.
Flagsmith also has an API that allows you to integrate it with existing tools and workflows. The API can be used to create, update, delete, or query feature flags programmatically. The API can also be used to fetch feature flag settings from App Configuration or other configuration sources. Plus, native integration options let you send flag data to your existing tools (behavioural, analytics, performance monitoring, etc.) to make informed, data-backed decisions where you’re already making them.
Flagsmith allows you to control your feature flag states dynamically without redeploying the code. You can toggle features on or off for different environments, such as development, testing, staging, or production. It can also toggle features for different users or user segments based on various criteria, such as user attributes, location, device type, browser version, etc.
Flagsmith also allows providers some great features that let you monitor and analyze feature flag performance and impact using analytics and metrics. You can track how many users see each feature flag variation and how they interact with it. It can also measure how each feature flag affects key metrics such as user satisfaction, retention, conversion, or revenue.
With Flagsmith, you can gain more flexibility and control over your feature flag lifecycle and improve the software delivery process. It also helps reduce the complexity and technical debt codebase by avoiding hard-coded if/else statements.
Some use cases for Flagsmith
Let's explore some potential use cases for Flagsmith:
As teams are looking to modernize their development processes, there is a need to be able to deploy software at a fast pace without creating unexpected bugs, or long rollout periods. Moreover, rather than setting a release window, the new features can be rolled out almost instantly once they are ready with the help of feature flags. This also benefits projects that are interdependent and are broken down into smaller components.
Feature flags can be used to test new features in production with a small group of users before rolling them out to everyone. This can help validate assumptions and collect feedback faster.
Feature flags can be used to run experiments on different variations of our features and compare their outcomes. This can help us optimize features for users and business goals.
Another use case for feature flags is to toggle features on or off for different user segments based on their attributes or behaviour. This helps personalize features for users and provide them with a better experience.
Feature flags can also be used to make some quick fixes in code without disrupting user activity. With traditional deployments, there would be a short downtime, or it would take a bit of time for the changes to reach all users. Whereas with feature flags, it is almost instantaneous without any downtime.
Conclusion
Feature flags are a great way to roll out software features without the fear of bugs, or downtime, and the changes can be rolled back at any point in time. Tools such as Flagsmith provide an easy-to-use platform for implementing feature flags into applications. It also provides a lot of important monitoring features and integration options with existing tools (analytics, monitoring, and more) that can allow organizations to make data-driven decisions.