Use cases

Feature flags are a powerful tool to control application behavior. The LaunchDarkly feature management platform brings together targeting rules, integrations, automation.

Feature management is not only a development tool, it's a catalyst for fearless collaboration and delegation. Below are some real-world use cases for feature flags.

Modify logging levels

Verbose logs are great for debugging and troubleshooting, but always running an application in debug mode is not viable. The amount of log data generated would be overwhelming. Changing logging levels on the fly typically requires changing a configuration file and restarting the application. A multivariate operational flag enables you to change the logging level from WARNING to DEBUG in real-time.

Benefits

• Empower Incident Response, Operations, and Customer Support teams with the ability to enable verbose logging for a subset of services or even specific users using targeting rules and custom roles
• Reduce costs of log aggregation and storage

API rate limiting

Too many API requests can make a highly reliable API less reliable. Whether the API requests come from a misconfigured endpoint, a misbehaving script, or a DDoS attack, operational flags can help you limit the requests on the fly. You can change the number or types of requests allowed with a long-term operational flag.

Entitlements

Give users access to certain features based on subscription level or trial status.

Security policies and time-bound escalations

Easily implement access restrictions to sensitive internal tools. Let's say you have a tool that allows employees to login as a customer for troubleshooting:

Support Managers can grant access to other employees and schedule automatic revocation with just a click.