Article · 30 min read

Feature Toggles (aka Feature Flags)

Pete Hodgson · martinfowler.com Free Intermediate

Flags let you merge and deploy unfinished or risky work while keeping it switched off, so you avoid long lived branches and can turn a bad feature off without a redeploy. That is a cheap safety net that fits two people and removes a lot of the fear that pushes founders toward heavy process. This piece covers the useful patterns and the ones that create mess later.

• A flag decouples deploying code from releasing a feature
• A kill switch is a rollback you can flip in seconds
• Remove stale flags so they do not become permanent debt