Tutorial: Manage feature flags in Azure App Configuration

You can create feature flags in Azure App Configuration and manage them from the Feature Manager in the Azure portal.

In this tutorial, you learn how to:

  • Define and manage feature flags in App Configuration.

Create feature flags

The Feature Manager in the Azure portal for App Configuration provides a UI for creating and managing the feature flags that you use in your applications.

To add a new feature flag:

  1. Open an Azure App Configuration store and from the Operations menu, select Feature Manager > Create.

    Screenshot of the Azure platform. Create a feature flag.

  2. Check the box Enable feature flag to make the new feature flag active as soon as the flag has been created.

    Screenshot of the Azure platform. Feature flag creation form.

  3. Enter a Feature flag name. The feature flag name is the unique ID of the flag, and the name that should be used when referencing the flag in code.

  4. You can edit the Key for your feature flag. The default value for this key is the name of your feature flag. You can change the key to add a prefix, which can be used to find specific feature flags when loading the feature flags in your application. For example, using the application's name as prefix such as appname:featureflagname.

  5. Optionally select an existing Label or create a new one, and enter a description for the new feature flag.

  6. Leave the Use feature filter box unchecked and select Apply to create the feature flag. To learn more about feature filters, visit Use feature filters to enable conditional feature flags and Enable staged rollout of features for targeted audiences.

Update feature flags

To update a feature flag:

  1. From the Operations menu, select Feature Manager.

  2. Move to the right end of the feature flag you want to modify and select the More actions ellipsis (...). From this menu, you can edit the flag, create a label, update tags, review the history, lock or delete the feature flag.

  3. Select Edit and update the feature flag.

    Screenshot of the Azure platform. Edit a feature flag.

In the Feature manager, you can also change the state of a feature flag by checking or unchecking the Enable Feature flag checkbox.

Access feature flags

In the Operations menu, select Feature manager to display all your feature flags.

Screenshot of the Azure platform. Edit feature flag columns.

Manage view > Edit Columns lets you add or remove columns and change the column order.

Manage view > Settings lets you choose how many feature flags will be loaded per Load more action. Load more will only be visible if there are more than 200 feature flags.

Feature flags created with the Feature Manager are stored as regular key-values. They're kept with a special prefix .appconfig.featureflag/ and content type application/vnd.microsoft.appconfig.ff+json;charset=utf-8.

To view the underlying key-values:

  1. In the Operations menu, open the Configuration explorer.

    Screenshot of the Azure platform. Include feature flags in Configuration explorer.

  2. Select Manage view > Settings.

  3. Select Include feature flags in the configuration explorer and Apply.

Your application can retrieve these values by using the App Configuration configuration providers, SDKs, command-line extensions, and REST APIs.

Next steps