OpenFeature is an open specification that provides a vendor-agnostic, community-driven API for feature flagging that works with your favorite feature flag management tool or in-house solution.

Overview

The OpenFeature React SDK adds React-specific functionality to the OpenFeature Web SDK.

In addition to the feature provided by the web sdk, capabilities include:

• Overview
• Quick start
  • Requirements
  • Install
    • npm
    • yarn
    • Required peer dependencies
  • Usage
    • OpenFeatureProvider context provider
    • Evaluation hooks
    • Multiple Providers and Domains
    • Re-rendering with Context Changes
    • Re-rendering with Flag Configuration Changes
    • Suspense Support
    • Tracking
  • Testing
• FAQ and troubleshooting
• Resources

Quick start

Requirements

• ES2015-compatible web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc)
• React version 16.8+

Install

npm

npm install --save @openfeature/react-sdk

yarn

# yarn requires manual installation of the peer dependencies (see below)
yarn add @openfeature/react-sdk @openfeature/web-sdk @openfeature/core

Required peer dependencies

The following list contains the peer dependencies of @openfeature/react-sdk. See the package.json for the required versions.

• @openfeature/web-sdk
• react

Usage

OpenFeatureProvider context provider

The OpenFeatureProvider is a React context provider which represents a scope for feature flag evaluations within a React application. It binds an OpenFeature client to all evaluations within child components, and allows the use of evaluation hooks. The example below shows how to use the OpenFeatureProvider with OpenFeature's InMemoryProvider.

import { EvaluationContext, OpenFeatureProvider, useFlag, OpenFeature, InMemoryProvider } from '@openfeature/react-sdk';

const flagConfig = {
  'new-message': {
    disabled: false,
    variants: {
      on: true,
      off: false,
    },
    defaultVariant: "on",
    contextEvaluator: (context: EvaluationContext) => {
      if (context.silly) {
        return 'on';
      }
      return 'off'
    }
  },
};

// Instantiate and set our provider (be sure this only happens once)!
// Note: there's no need to await its initialization, the React SDK handles re-rendering and suspense for you!
OpenFeature.setProvider(new InMemoryProvider(flagConfig));

// Enclose your content in the configured provider
function App() {
  return (
    <OpenFeatureProvider>
      <Page></Page>
    </OpenFeatureProvider>
  );
}

Evaluation hooks

Within the provider, you can use the various evaluation hooks to evaluate flags.

function Page() {
  // Use the "query-style" flag evaluation hook, specifying a flag-key and a default value.
  const { value: showNewMessage } = useFlag('new-message', true);
  return (
    <div className="App">
      <header className="App-header">
        {showNewMessage ? <p>Welcome to this OpenFeature-enabled React app!</p> : <p>Welcome to this React app.</p>}
      </header>
    </div>
  )
}

You can use the strongly typed flag value and flag evaluation detail hooks as well if you prefer.

import { useBooleanFlagValue } from '@openfeature/react-sdk';

// boolean flag evaluation
const value = useBooleanFlagValue('new-message', false);

import { useBooleanFlagDetails } from '@openfeature/react-sdk';

// "detailed" boolean flag evaluation
const {
  value,
  variant,
  reason,
  flagMetadata
} = useBooleanFlagDetails('new-message', false);

Multiple Providers and Domains

Multiple providers can be used by passing a domain to the OpenFeatureProvider:

// Flags within this domain will use the client/provider associated with `my-domain`,
function App() {
  return (
    <OpenFeatureProvider domain={'my-domain'}>
      <Page></Page>
    </OpenFeatureProvider>
  );
}

This is analogous to:

OpenFeature.getClient('my-domain');

For more information about domains, refer to the web SDK.

Re-rendering with Context Changes

By default, if the OpenFeature evaluation context is modified, components will be re-rendered. This is useful in cases where flag values are dependant on user-attributes or other application state (user logged in, items in card, etc). You can disable this feature in the hook options (or in the OpenFeatureProvider):

function Page() {
  const { value: showNewMessage } = useFlag('new-message', false, { updateOnContextChanged: false });
  return (
    <div className="App">
      <header className="App-header">
        {showNewMessage ? <p>Welcome to this OpenFeature-enabled React app!</p> : <p>Welcome to this React app.</p>}
      </header>
    </div>
  );
}

For more information about how evaluation context works in the React SDK, see the documentation on OpenFeature's static context SDK paradigm.

Re-rendering with Flag Configuration Changes

By default, if the underlying provider emits a ConfigurationChanged event, components will be re-rendered. This is useful if you want your UI to immediately reflect changes in the backend flag configuration. You can disable this feature in the hook options (or in the OpenFeatureProvider):

function Page() {
  const { value: showNewMessage } = useFlag('new-message', false, { updateOnConfigurationChanged: false });
  return (
    <div className="App">
      <header className="App-header">
        {showNewMessage ? <p>Welcome to this OpenFeature-enabled React app!</p> : <p>Welcome to this React app.</p>}
      </header>
    </div>
  );
}

If your provider doesn't support updates, this configuration has no impact.

[!NOTE] If your provider includes a list of flags changed in its PROVIDER_CONFIGURATION_CHANGED event, that list of flags is used to decide which flag evaluation hooks should re-run by diffing the latest value of these flags with the previous render. If your provider event does not the include the flags changed list, then the SDK diffs all flags with the previous render to determine which hooks should re-run.

Suspense Support

[!NOTE] React suspense is an experimental feature and is subject to change in future versions.

Frequently, providers need to perform some initial startup tasks. It may be desirable not to display components with feature flags until this is complete or when the context changes. Built-in suspense support makes this easy. Use useSuspenseFlag or pass { suspend: true } in the hook options to leverage this functionality.

function Content() {
  // cause the "fallback" to be displayed if the component uses feature flags and the provider is not ready
  return (
    <Suspense fallback={<Fallback />}>
      <Message />
    </Suspense>
  );
}

function Message() {
  // component to render after READY, equivalent to useFlag('new-message', false, { suspend: true });
  const { value: showNewMessage } = useSuspenseFlag('new-message', false);

  return (
    <>
      {showNewMessage ? (
        <p>Welcome to this OpenFeature-enabled React app!</p>
      ) : (
        <p>Welcome to this plain old React app!</p>
      )}
    </>
  );
}

function Fallback() {
  // component to render before READY.
  return <p>Waiting for provider to be ready...</p>;
}

This can be disabled in the hook options (or in the OpenFeatureProvider).

Tracking

The tracking API allows you to use OpenFeature abstractions and objects to associate user actions with feature flag evaluations. This is essential for robust experimentation powered by feature flags. For example, a flag enhancing the appearance of a UI component might drive user engagement to a new feature; to test this hypothesis, telemetry collected by a hook or provider can be associated with telemetry reported in the client's track function.

The React SDK includes a hook for firing tracking events in the <OpenFeatureProvider> context in use:

function MyComponent() {
  // get a tracking function for this <OpenFeatureProvider>.
  const { track } = useTrack();

  // call the tracking event
  // can be done in render, useEffect, or in handlers, depending on your use case
  track(eventName, trackingDetails);

  return <>...</>;
}

Testing

The React SDK includes a built-in context provider for testing. This allows you to easily test components that use evaluation hooks, such as useFlag. If you try to test a component (in this case, MyComponent) which uses an evaluation hook, you might see an error message like:

No OpenFeature client available - components using OpenFeature must be wrapped with an <OpenFeatureProvider>.

You can resolve this by simply wrapping your component under test in the OpenFeatureTestProvider:

// use default values for all evaluations
<OpenFeatureTestProvider>
  <MyComponent />
</OpenFeatureTestProvider>

The basic configuration above will simply use the default value provided in code. If you'd like to control the values returned by the evaluation hooks, you can pass a map of flag keys and values:

// return `true` for all evaluations of `'my-boolean-flag'`
<OpenFeatureTestProvider flagValueMap={{ 'my-boolean-flag': true }}>
  <MyComponent />
</OpenFeatureTestProvider>

Additionally, you can pass an artificial delay for the provider startup to test your suspense boundaries or loaders/spinners impacted by feature flags:

// delay the provider start by 1000ms and then return `true` for all evaluations of `'my-boolean-flag'`
<OpenFeatureTestProvider delayMs={1000} flagValueMap={{ 'my-boolean-flag': true }}>
  <MyComponent />
</OpenFeatureTestProvider>

For maximum control, you can also pass your own mock provider implementation. The type of this option is Partial<Provider>, so you can pass an incomplete implementation:

class MyTestProvider implements Partial<Provider> {
  // implement the relevant resolver
  resolveBooleanEvaluation(): ResolutionDetails<boolean> {
    return {
      value: true,
      variant: 'my-variant',
      reason: 'MY_REASON',
    };
  }
}

// use your custom testing provider
<OpenFeatureTestProvider provider={new MyTestProvider()}>
  <MyComponent />
</OpenFeatureTestProvider>,

FAQ and troubleshooting

I get an error that says something like: A React component suspended while rendering, but no fallback UI was specified.

The OpenFeature React SDK features built-in suspense support. This means that it will render your loading fallback automatically while your provider starts up and during context reconciliation for any of your components using feature flags! If you use suspense and neglect to create a suspense boundary around any components using feature flags, you will see this error. Add a suspense boundary to resolve this issue. Alternatively, you can disable this suspense (the default) by removing suspendWhileReconciling=true, suspendUntilReady=true or suspend=true in the evaluation hooks or the OpenFeatureProvider (which applies to all evaluation hooks in child components).

I get odd rendering issues or errors when components mount if I use the suspense features.

In React 16/17's "Legacy Suspense", when a component suspends, its sibling components initially mount and then are hidden. This can cause surprising effects and inconsistencies if sibling components are rendered while the provider is still getting ready. To fix this, you can upgrade to React 18, which uses "Concurrent Suspense", in which siblings are not mounted until their suspended sibling resolves. Alternatively, if you cannot upgrade to React 18, you can use the useWhenProviderReady utility hook in any sibling components to prevent them from mounting until the provider is ready.

I am using multiple OpenFeatureProvider contexts, but they share the same provider or evaluation context. Why?

The OpenFeatureProvider binds a client to all child components, but the provider and context associated with that client is controlled by the domain parameter. This is consistent with all OpenFeature SDKs. To scope an OpenFeatureProvider to a particular provider/context, set the domain parameter on your OpenFeatureProvider:

<OpenFeatureProvider domain={'my-domain'}>
  <Page></Page>
</OpenFeatureProvider>

I can import things form the @openfeature/react-sdk, @openfeature/web-sdk, and @openfeature/core; which should I use?

The @openfeature/react-sdk re-exports everything from its peers (@openfeature/web-sdk and @openfeature/core) and adds the React-specific features. You can import everything from the @openfeature/react-sdk directly. Avoid importing anything from @openfeature/web-sdk or @openfeature/core.

Resources

• Example repo