Chapter 6: Switches

Switches are a way of working with feature management and LaunchDarkly that we have not looked at yet. They differ from the likes of rollouts and experimentation because they can be a feature flag that is intentionally used permanently within your application. In the other use cases we have explored so far, the aim has been to release new features in a controlled and safe manner, which ultimately results in the feature flag being removed from the code base. However, switches offer us a completely different set of scenarios.

Switches can be used to turn key functionality on or off as needed. Toggling functionality is not done to perform testing or prove that a feature technically works; instead, it is there to offer teams and businesses the opportunity to respond quickly and easily to changes within the production environment. Throughout this chapter, we will explore this new approach to feature management in detail.

In this chapter, we will be covering the...