Feature Flag YAML - Rollout

This is the tracking issue for the Feature Flag YAML rollout.

Documentation

• Starting with Feature Flags in Development (presentation)
• Creating a new feature flag
• Including a feature behind a feature flag in the final release
• Controlling feature flags

Existing feature flags

There's a number of users of a new YAML definition process. You can check the existing feature flags in these places:

• config/feature_flags/development/
• ee/config/feature_flags/development/

Timeline

• Announcements
  • Two weeks in advance - Announce timeline on various engineering Keeping Yourself Informed channels https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/#keeping-yourself-informed
  • Fridays until rollout Announce in WIR and on https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/#keeping-yourself-informed channels
• September 7
  • Feature flag training available
  • Announced in WIR
  • Announced in https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/#keeping-yourself-informed channels
  • On-boarding template: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/people-group/employment-templates/-/merge_requests/491
  • Training with presentation link: gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com!61722 (merged)
• September 14
  • Announced in WIR
  • Announced in https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/#keeping-yourself-informed channels
  • Migrate existing feature flags
  • Inform teams that any changes to feature flag will require an update to the definition. New feature flag format not yet enforced.
• September 21
  • Announced in WIR
  • Announced in https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/#keeping-yourself-informed channels
  • New feature flag format will be enforced
  • Run a "catch up" migration to catch any non-YAML feature flags
• October / %13.5
  • Reach to teams/groups to update feature flag definitions with an ownership

Key-moments

September 7: Feature flag training available

We have up-to date documentation about development usage of the feature flags.

September 15: Migrate existing feature flags

We will as part of this effort gather ALL existing feature flags and create theirs definition. The feature flags will be committed and merged into master:

• config/feature_flags/development/
• ee/config/feature_flags/development/

The YAML definition will:

• have name:, type: and default_enabled:
• lack: group:, introduced_by_url:, rollout_issue_url:

From that point the change of default_enabled: for existing feature flags will require update of YAML definition stored in one of the above locations.

At that point YAML-definition is still optional

September 21: New feature flag format will be enforced

We will require that all new feature flags to have YAML definition. It means in order to use a feature flag in a GitLab codebase the bin/feature-flag as described in creating a new feature flag will have to be used.

October / %13.5: Reach to groups to update ownership

During %13.5 cycle we will reach out to the respective groups to ask to prefill the details about group:. The introduced_by_url and rollout_issue_url: will be not be required for older feature flags.

The related issue #251080 (closed).