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DevOps Intermediate

What is Feature Flag?

A technique that allows enabling or disabling features in production without deploying new code, enabling safe rollouts and A/B testing.

Feature flags (feature toggles) wrap new features in conditional checks that can be toggled on/off remotely. This decouples deployment from release — code can be deployed but hidden until ready, or enabled for specific users/percentages.

Use cases include gradual rollouts, A/B testing, kill switches for problematic features, and subscription-based feature access. Tools include LaunchDarkly, Unleash, and Flagsmith. Clean up old flags to prevent technical debt.

Related Terms

Immutable Deployment
A deployment strategy where new versions replace existing instances entirely rather than updating them in place.
SonarQube
A platform for continuous code quality inspection that detects bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells through static analysis.
Ansible
An agentless automation tool for configuration management, application deployment, and task automation using YAML playbooks.
Continuous Deployment
A practice where every code change that passes automated tests is automatically deployed to production.
Trunk-Based Development
A source control strategy where developers integrate small changes directly into the main branch frequently, often multiple times per day.
Artifact
A packaged, versioned output of a build process — such as a Docker image, JAR file, or compiled binary — ready for deployment.
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