The document discusses the advantages of using feature flags for software releases, including the ability to deploy functionality selectively and gather real-world feedback. It emphasizes the importance of best practices for feature flagging, such as managing flag visibility and access, and offers guidelines to optimize usage. Overall, feature flags are presented as a way to enhance the release process by reducing risks and enabling more flexible development strategies.

1. Faster & Less Risky Releases
With Feature Flags!
Edith Harbaugh
@LaunchDarkly LaunchDarkly.com

2. Edith Harbaugh
• Cofounder & CEO, LaunchDarkly
• Podcast cohost, “To Be Continuous”
• Engineering, Epicentric & Vignette
• Product, Monster.com, EasyBloom, TripIt
• Marketing, Concur
• BS Engineering Harvey Mudd College

3. Tsunami Software Releases

4. Feature Flags

5. Feature Flags!
• Push functionality to who you want,
when you want
• Expand or roll back, without a new
deployment
• Separate code deployment from
business logic
• Get real-world feedback and analytics

6. No long lived branches

7. Kill Your Staging Server
Developer
Environments
QA STAGING PRODUCTION

8. Use Feature Flags to expose
functionality when you want, to
who you want

9. Early Access Betas

10. Opt-In

11. Block

12. Rollouts

13. Hypothesis Driven Development

14. Newbie > Power User

15. Subscription

16. Sunset

17. Best Practices for Feature Flagging
• What’s
the
right
level
of
flagging?
• Ambiguously
named
flags
• Misunderstood
flags
• Removing
flags
• Control
access
to
flags
• Visibility
to
non-­‐technical
users
• Logging
• Dependent
flags

18. edith@launchdarkly.com
@Edith_H
@continuousCast