Improve visibility of Feature Flags
When PMs/EMs are reviewing release posts for a release, it is difficult to tell whether a feature will be live for customers or not due to feature flags. Currently, there is no immediately visible way to tell if the feature is being released behind a feature flag, what the feature flag is, and whether it is default on/off.
We have documentation around feature flags, but need to be more efficient.
Barriers
- We do not always collectively know what steps need taken in order to remove a feature flag
- We do not have a standard place to clearly indicate that work is behind a feature flag
- We do not always apply the ~"feature flag" label to MRs
Potential solutions
-
Modify the Issue Templateto indicate whether work is behind a feature flag and if the feature is default on or off, include this in the feature flag documentation for engineering -
Suggest changes to Danger Bot, so that it can recognize a feature flag is being applied without the ~"feature flag" label gitlab-org/gitlab!26115 (closed) -
Create a standard for tracking what steps need taken to remove a feature flag, and associate this with the issuehttps://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/blob/master/.gitlab/issue_templates/Feature%20Flag%20Roll%20Out.md -
Update the release post template to check feature flag status, in order make sure we aren't announcing something that is turned off
Edited by Michelle Gill