This guide provides ways to reduce and eliminate technical debt related to feature flags using LaunchDarkly. Like all debt, technical debt accumulates over time, but you can mitigate that debt over time if you put effective processes in place before you need them.

Feature management is a new class of software development tools and techniques powered by feature flags. A feature flag is a lever of control within your code (an if-else statement) that decouples code deployments from feature releases. Developers have used some variation of feature flags for years. But when it comes to enjoying the full benefits of feature flags, many have only scratched the surface.

The hexagonal architecture pattern, which is also known as the ports and adapters pattern, was proposed by Dr. Alistair Cockburn in 2005. It aims to create loosely coupled architectures where application components can be tested independently, with no dependencies on data stores or user interfaces (UIs). This pattern helps prevent technology lock-in of data stores and UIs. This makes it easier to change the technology stack over time, with limited or no impact to business logic. In this loosely coupled architecture, the application communicates with external components over interfaces called ports, and uses adapters to translate the technical exchanges with these components.

The Build pillar addresses the use of feature flags for building and delivering new features, bug fixes, and code changes of any kind. While much of this category deals with release management, we’ve named it “Build” because of the critical role feature flags also play in pre-release activities. Such activities might include trunk-based development, testing in production, and rollout planning.

Operate, the second of the Four Pillars of Feature Management, encompasses feature flag use cases that improve the operational health of your application. It entails making feature flags a mission-critical piece of your operations. As deployment speeds and infrastructural complexity go up, so does the need for operational safeguards. Feature management is that safeguard.

The Learn pillar of feature management focuses on enabling all teams to better understand how software changes affect users and systems. It is designed for the entire product delivery team: developers, DevOps and site reliability engineers (SREs), and product managers (PMs).

Empower, the fourth and final pillar of feature management, reimagines the process of giving users access to your software. It applies especially, though not exclusively to managing entitlements. In a software context, “entitlements” refers to the act of enabling or disabling features, services, and products for customers. For example, when you unlock your full application for a customer who had previously been using an abbreviated trial version, you have managed an entitlement.

Theoretically, teams can engage in all four pillars of feature management without relying on a dedicated feature management tool. In many cases, engineers will construct a patchwork solution for feature flag management in-house. Some organizations, however, do build and use world-class homegrown systems. But in our experience, the latter is the exception.