Feature Toggle Types

This feature was introduced in Unleash v3.5.0.

Starting with version 3.5.0 Unleash introduces the concept of feature toggle types. The toggle types are heavily inspired by Pete Hodgson's article on feature toggles.

The idea is to make it easier for teams to manage their feature toggles, if they can more clearly classify them. The classification will also help us understand the expected feature toggle lifetime. Some feature toggles are meant to live for a few weeks, while we work on the new functionality, while others are of a more permanent nature.

Feature toggle types currently supported by Unleash:

• Release - Used to enable trunk-based development for teams practicing Continuous Delivery. Expected lifetime 40 days
• Experiment - Used to perform multivariate or A/B testing. Expected lifetime 40 days
• Operational - Used to control operational aspects of the system's behavior. Expected lifetime 7 days
• Kill switch - Used to gracefully degrade system functionality. (permanent)
• Permission - Used to change the features or product experience that certain users receive. (permanent)

Deprecate a feature toggle

Feature toggles can now also be marked as stale (deprecated). This allows us to clearly signal that we should stop using the feature toggle in our applications.

The stale property can utilized to help us manage "feature toggle debt" in various ways:

• Inform the developer working locally when we detect usage of a stale feature toggle.
• Use it to break the build if the code contains stale feature toggles.
• Send automatic PR to remove usage of completed toggles.