Implement 'open feature' feature flagging#1371
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steventux
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Looks a lot better than env vars.
Made a small suggestion for readability, not a blocker.
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We're going to use openfeature format feature flags.
* Add application level environment variable to indicate the deployed environment that the running instance is running on. This can be used to predicate the environment banner, flags files etc
* Use InMemoryStore * Read yaml files for each env flags.<DEPLOYED_TO>.yaml
* Replace the existing env var based flag with a shiny new openfeature one This is a basic test implementation that will apply accross all environments currently
* Documentation for the yml openfeature implementation
* Add a COPY line to the docker file to build the flags files into the image. * Set to 444 to write protect the files (flagged by SonarQube)
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Description
We currently feature flag using environment variables. As we expand our private beta we will need to be able to enable and disable functionality in a more complex way. We will also need to assure enabling features as we build them which will require a degree of accountability for enabling features that is difficult to support with environment variable based flags.
OpenFeature gives us a consistent pluggable interface that allows a simple implementation (this one) to replace the existing level of functionality we have and will allow us to expand the backend flag management to use a custom backend or a service e.g https://www.getunleash.io or other open feature compliant SaaS. (there are discussions afoot to this end in the wider programme.
This PR:
Jira link
Review notes
I haven't replaced everything in this PR. Some of the other 'flags' might be simpler to leave as env vars as they're not really features e.g. BASIC_AUTH
The DEPLOYED_TO variable could be used for other things, replacing the DJANGO_ENV which has been a bit contentious. That hasn't been done here either.
Review checklist
/api/v1/), confirm whether it is a breaking change — if so, a new major version (/api/v2/) is required (see ADR-006)