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Do I need feature flags?

Do I need feature flags? Answer a few real conditions and get a Not yet / Probably yes / Yes-priority verdict — every factor tagged official fact, calculation, StackSays rule or estimate. No fabricated industry threshold.

A judgement tool, not a tool ranking · thresholds are StackSays rules, not industry standards · official facts verified 2026-07-17 · share the URL to share your answers

How to read this: every factor below is tagged by where it comes from — official fact official/documented · calculation math on your inputs · StackSays rule our decision logic · StackSays estimate our judgement. The verdict cut-points are StackSays rules, not an industry threshold — there is no universal traffic number for these decisions.

Your situation

The recommendation updates as you answer. Share the URL to share it.

Recommendation

Not yet

Based on the factors you set — 0 pushing toward adopting, 1 against.

Why it might be premature

  • -12 Solo + fast deploysIf you can redeploy/rollback in minutes and don't need targeting, a config value or env var may be enough for now (our judgement)StackSays estimate

When to reassess

Add a flag system when you need percentage rollouts, a prod kill switch, or experiments — not for a single on/off you could ship with config.

Minimal implementation

A config/env value or a tiny DB-backed boolean covers a first kill switch. Adopt a flag service when you need targeting, gradual rollout or experiments across environments.

Risk of not doing it

Coupling release to deploy (no gradual rollout / instant kill), and ad-hoc experiment plumbing.

Cost & complexity once adopted

Low to start (a service SDK or self-host). The design cost is flag hygiene — removing stale flags so they don't accumulate.

This is a judgement tool, not a leaderboard. The StackSays rule and StackSays estimate factors are StackSays logic and opinion; the official fact factors link to official sources below. No industry-standard threshold is implied — the answer is driven by the conditions you set.

Official facts cited

SourceVerified
Feature Toggles — patterns (reference)2026-07-18
LaunchDarkly — feature management concepts (official)2026-07-18

Only the factors tagged “official fact” rest on these sources; rules and estimates are StackSays logic and are labeled as such.

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