Chapter 2 · Model your release

Create your first feature

You create express-checkout with an owner, a ticket, two variants and the checkout-release pipeline, and read the feature list and detail page.

4:01 videoBuilds on:Contexts

Before you start

The contexts country and user_tier exist, and so does the pipeline checkout-release. See Contexts.
Sign in as priya Requester. Creating a feature needs no special role.
Select the team Checkout in Select team.

What a feature is

A flag with no owner, no ticket and no end date is how a codebase ends up with a hundred flags nobody dares delete. FluxGate asks you to record who owns a feature, why it exists and when it should be gone, right when you create it.

Feature type

Feature Type decides what the flag can do.

Type	What it does
`SIMPLE`	A plain on or off flag. It has no variants.
`CONTEXTUAL`	A flag with variants and targeting rules. It can return different values for different users.

Kind

Kind records what the flag is for. The choices are Release, Experiment, Ops / kill switch, Permission and Config. The field starts on Not set. A Release flag is meant to be removed once the rollout ends.

Variants

A variant is a named value the flag can return. A variant has a Variant Key, a Type and a Value. The type is String, Number, Boolean or JSON. The variants card appears only when the feature type is CONTEXTUAL. Your app asks for the flag and receives the value of the variant that FluxGate picks.

Owner, lifecycle, expiry, tags and ticket

Owner is free text. A person or a team both work.
Lifecycle is DRAFT, ACTIVE, DEPRECATED or ARCHIVED. The default is DRAFT. An archived flag that nothing uses can be deleted (Delete an archived flag).
Expiry is a date and time. It feeds the feature list, so flags that outlive their rollout are easy to find.
Tags are comma separated.
Ticket / Reference URL links the flag to its tracker issue, such as the Jira issue CHK-142. Anyone who finds the flag can trace it back.

Create express-checkout

Click Features under Build to open /features, then click Create New Feature. The page Create Feature opens at /features/create.
In the Basic Information card, fill Name with express-checkout. The name is the key your code asks for, so keep it stable.
Fill Description with One-tap checkout and Purpose with Cut checkout steps for returning shoppers.
Fill Ticket / Reference URL with https://juniper.atlassian.net/browse/CHK-142.
Set Feature Type to CONTEXTUAL and Kind to Release.
Set Lifecycle to ACTIVE, Owner to priya, Expiry to a date at the end of the quarter, and Tags to checkout, q4.
In the Feature Variants card, click Add Variant twice. Each new row starts with the key variant-1 or variant-2, the type String and an empty value.
Set the first row to Variant Key classic and Value classic. Set the second row to Variant Key express and Value express. Leave Type on String.
Open Pipeline Template. The selector reads "Select a Pipeline". Choose checkout-release. The toast "Pipeline template loaded" appears, and the stage graph shows Development, Staging and Production.
Click Create Feature. The toast "Feature created successfully" appears, and the page becomes Edit Feature at /features/<id>/edit.

Create Feature form with name express-checkout, description, purpose, Jira ticket URL, feature type CONTEXTUAL, kind Release, lifecycle ACTIVE, owner priya and tags checkout and q4 — The Basic Information card after steps 2 to 6, with Expiry still empty. The Feature Variants card follows below it.

Create Feature form with name express-checkout, description, purpose, Jira ticket URL, feature type CONTEXTUAL, kind Release, lifecycle ACTIVE, owner priya and tags checkout and q4 — The Basic Information card after steps 2 to 6, with Expiry still empty. The Feature Variants card follows below it.

The Blast Radius panel on the edit page shows what a change to this flag could reach. Right after creation it reads MEDIUM RISK with the counts Environments 3, Clients 0, Contexts 2, Dependencies 0 and 7d evals 0. It fills in as you connect apps.

Do not click Update Feature as priya. Editing a feature needs an admin or a Team Admin.

holiday-banner is a simple flag: on or off, with no variants. Later chapters use it for the kill switch and scheduled changes, so give it the same pipeline.

Click Back to Features, then Create New Feature.
Fill Name with holiday-banner and set Feature Type to SIMPLE. The variants card is replaced by the text "Simple features are basic on/off flags".
Set Pipeline Template to checkout-release. Leave Kind on Not set.
Click Create Feature.

Read the list and the detail page

Click Back to Features. The list at /features shows both flags. Its columns are Name, Type, Lifecycle, Description, Owner / Tags, Expiry, Active and Actions. The Name cell also shows the Kind badge. A flag without an owner reads Unassigned, and one without an expiry reads Not set.

Filters sit above the table: name, type, status, lifecycle, stale, owner, expired, tags, kind, dependency and approval. Saved Views keep a set of filters in your browser, per team. They are not shared with other people or browsers.

The Active badge means the flag is switched on. It does not mean the flag is live: nothing is served until a stage is deployed.

Click View Details on the row, or click the feature name, to open /features/<id>. The read-only page shows the header (name, description, the badge Enabled, lifecycle and type), the cards Evaluations 7d, Owner, Stages and Dependencies, and five tabs:

Tab	What it shows
Overview	Lifecycle, kind, last evaluated, expiry, cleanup reason, purpose, reference, tags, linked Jira issues, recent metrics and active approvals.
Stages	One row per pipeline stage with its status.
Variants	The variants and their values.
Dependencies	Declared links to other features.
Activity	The history of changes.

Feature detail page for express-checkout with status badges, owner, stage count and the Overview tab — The detail page of express-checkout: status badges, owner, stages, and the Lifecycle card.

Feature detail page for express-checkout with status badges, owner, stage count and the Overview tab — The detail page of express-checkout: status badges, owner, stages, and the Lifecycle card.

Examples

The variants of `express-checkout`

Variant Key	Type	Value	Meaning
`classic`	String	`classic`	The checkout you have today.
`express`	String	`express`	The new one-tap checkout.

The two features after this page

Feature	Type	Kind	Pipeline	Stage status
`express-checkout`	`CONTEXTUAL`	Release	`checkout-release`	`NOT_DEPLOYED` on all three stages
`holiday-banner`	`SIMPLE`	Not set	`checkout-release`	`NOT_DEPLOYED` on all three stages

Good to know

Every stage starts as NOT_DEPLOYED. Do not call a flag live before a stage is deployed.
Feature keys are unique within a team. Creating a second feature with the key express-checkout fails with "Feature with key 'express-checkout' already exists".
The Pipeline Template selector exists only on the create page. The Rollout Templates card below it stores a stage plan. Targeting rules comes back to it.
The trash button in a feature row does nothing, and the UI has no other way to remove a feature. Do not rely on it to clean up.
Expiry uses your browser's time zone.
The edit page also has the tabs Configuration, Experiment and History, and a Setup Wizard button. This page does not use them.

Next

Add targeting rules to express-checkout in Targeting rules.