Feature Flags

This is a continuation from the previous article on feature flags implemented using Azure App configuration service to maintain the flags. Just to reiterate, feature management can be implemented using config files but this article is trying to implement feature flags connecting to Azure App configuration service. Introduction The previous article described about implementing a boolean feature flag to turn on/off a feature. In this article I am trying to implement a custom feature flag. Microsoft provides few predefined custom feature flags or feature filters (as they are called) Targeting, TimeWindow, and Percentage (more about it here), which covers most usecases, however, there might be situations where you find the predefined ones falling short. In this article I am building a filter ground up with a made up custom logic. ...

Feature flag is a very popular practice in modern application development, which is used to specifically hide features implemented that are not yet ready to be used by wider audience, and when ready can be enabled by a flip of a switch. The flags can also be used as a kill switch for application feature when it not working as expected. With feature flags implemented, it would be effective to have the features enabled or disabled from a location outside of the application infrastructure or configuration, this way we can have features spanning across applications be controlled via a centralized flag. Azure has feature management as part of the Azure App configuration service which can manage feature flags and maintain it separate from your hosting model and will act as a centralized repository for feature flags. Microsoft also provides libraries for different programing languages to consume Azure App Configuration service. More about it can be found here ...