Configuration as Code Support and Integration with GitHub to Treat Feature Flags as Mission Critical Operations

Today we announced our feature management platform will leverage Configuration as Code (CaC) and a powerful integration with GitHub, so developers can treat feature flags as they treat any other mission-critical infrastructure. Additionally, we plan to open source our feature management platform, providing greater flexibility and stronger ownership of feature changes in production. Both moves allow development organizations to gain the benefits of using feature flags - such as increased speed of development and deployment, and reduced risks of deploying new code - without sacrificing any of the known management processes that govern the software development lifecycle (SDLC). “CloudBees Feature Management’s CaC approach, the integration with GitHub, and the decision to open source its feature flag technology mean that developers now enjoy the benefit of both worlds - faster development and deployment of new features without the risk of breaking things,” said Kyle Daigle, director of Ecosystem Engineering for GitHub. Feature flags modeled with CaC means that for the first time, software developers can design, implement, and deploy application features using the same processes used to manage code changes, like full change management, ability to rollback, track ownership of changes, and more, to reduce the inherent risks of breaking production. The ability to treat feature flags like configuration as code and use the same tools as any other software project allows dev teams to be more agile, and rapidly deploy features that add value to a business much faster than before. Until now, control of feature flags has circumvented existing software development and deployment processes or known checks and balances for software development and production changes. The decision to integrate our configuration as code with Git & GitHub and open source our platform means that product and development teams have consistent and reliable control of every feature in production, resulting in applications that are easier to develop and maintain. Our feature management solution with CaC will initially leverage GitHub as an integration point with support for Atlassian, Gitlab and other hosting services coming soon. “We use feature flags to continuously deploy new features to production without risk so, it was important to find a solution that is engineering-friendly. One platform met those requirements, and it was CloudBees Feature Management,” explained Ron Shoshani, vice president of R&D at Testim.io. “Integration with GitHub allows our dev teams to work faster in collaboration on dev and deploy goals. CloudBees Feature Management’s plans for open source will ultimately provide us with more flexibility and ownership over the code that drives our business.” If you any questions and are looking to learn more, please email us at support[at]rollout.io