Controlled releases and continuous delivery are made possible by integrating feature toggles and flags into a CI/CD pipeline, which also reduces risk. Here's how to put it into practice:
Tools for Feature Toggle Management:
Toggling feature toggles dynamically can be accomplished with specialized tools like LaunchDarkly, Split, or Unleash. Without requiring code modifications, these technologies offer dashboards for simple toggle activation and deactivation.
Add Toggles to the Code:
Make sure that new features are only triggered when toggles are enabled by incorporating feature toggle logic straight into your application code.
Example:
Integration of Pipelines:
Alongside deployments, feature flag configurations can be automatically updated with CI/CD pipelines.
Example: Use toggle management tools to deploy a feature in the pipeline but keep it off by default.
Examining Novel Features:
Toggles can be turned on for testing in QA or staging environments and off for production.
Perform automated tests to verify compatibility with toggles turned on and off.
Rollouts in Phases:
Enable toggles for a subset of users (for example, 10% of traffic) and progressively expand coverage as confidence increases to carry out gradual rollouts.
Observation and Retraction:
Avoid the need for complete rollbacks by keeping an eye on feature performance in real-time and quickly disabling the toggle if problems occur.
You may safely deploy and test features while preserving system stability by integrating toggle management tools, controlled testing, and incremental rollouts into your pipeline.
