Feature Flag Management Documentation

Overview

This module provides a framework for managing feature flags in a JavaScript application. It allows you to define feature flags as predicate functions that return boolean values, enabling conditional behavior based on the flags.

Functions

isFeatureEnabled(feature, params = {})

Description:

Checks if a feature is enabled by evaluating its corresponding predicate function. If the function returns a boolean value, that value is used to determine the feature's state. If the function does not return a boolean or throws an error, the function defaults to false. Additionally, it checks for an environment variable with the feature name, which can override the predicate.

Parameters:

• feature (string): The name of the feature to check.
• params (object, optional): Parameters to pass to the feature's predicate function.

Returns:

• boolean: true if the feature is enabled, false otherwise.

Usage Example:

const { isFeatureEnabled } = require("./isFeatureEnabled");

const isEnabled = isFeatureEnabled("newDashboard", { userId: 12345 });
if (isEnabled) {
  // Enable the new dashboard feature
}

Notes:

• If the predicate function for the feature does not return a boolean value, a warning is logged, and the function defaults to returning false.
• If the feature is not defined as a predicate, the function will check the corresponding environment variable (e.g., process.env.newDashboard).

setFeature(featureDefinitions)

Description:

Registers a set of feature flags, each associated with a predicate function. The predicates should return boolean values, determining whether the corresponding feature is enabled or not.

Parameters:

• featureDefinitions (object): An object where each key is a feature name and each value is a predicate function.

Throws:

• PredicateNotAFunctionError: Thrown if any value in featureDefinitions is not a function.
• InvalidFeatureDefinition: Thrown if featureDefinitions is not an object or is null.

Usage Example:

const { setFeature } = require("./setFeature");

setFeature({
  newDashboard: ({ userId }) => userId === 12345,
  betaFeature: () => Math.random() > 0.5,
});

Notes:

• Ensure that all predicate functions return a boolean value.
• This function should be called during the application startup to register all necessary feature flags.

Error Classes

PredicateNotAFunctionError

Description:

An error thrown when a feature definition is attempted with a non-function predicate. This ensures that only valid functions are used to define feature flags.

Usage Example:

throw new PredicateNotAFunctionError(featureName);

Notes:

• The error message will include the name of the feature that caused the error.

InvalidFeatureDefinition

Description:

An error thrown when the setFeature function is called with an invalid featureDefinitions object. This ensures that the input to setFeature is always a valid object.

Usage Example:

throw new InvalidFeatureDefinition();

Notes:

• This error is thrown if featureDefinitions is not an object or is null.

Environmental Variables

Environment Variable Override

• The isFeatureEnabled function can also check for environment variables to determine if a feature is enabled. If the environment variable matches the feature name and is set to "true", the feature is considered enabled.

Example:

export newDashboard=true

In this case, calling isFeatureEnabled("newDashboard") will return true regardless of the predicate function.

Summary

The isFeatureEnabled and setFeature functions provide a flexible and robust way to manage feature flags in your application. By defining features as predicate functions, you can control which features are enabled based on complex logic while maintaining a fallback to environment variables for simple overrides. The error handling ensures that invalid feature definitions are caught early, preventing runtime issues.