This document describes the design considerations and goals for the OpenFeature CLI tool.
Code generation automates the creation of strongly typed flag accessors, minimizing configuration errors and providing a better developer experience. By generating these accessors, developers can avoid issues related to incorrect flag names or types, resulting in more reliable and maintainable code.
Benefits of the code generation approach:
- Type Safety: Catch flag-related errors at compile time instead of runtime
- IDE Support: Get autocomplete and documentation for your flags
- Refactoring Support: Rename flags and the changes propagate throughout your codebase
- Discoverability: Make it easier for developers to find and use available flags
- Unified Flag Manifest Format: Establish a standardized flag manifest format that can be easily converted from existing configurations.
- Strongly Typed Flag Accessors: Develop a CLI tool to generate strongly typed flag accessors for multiple programming languages.
- Modular and Extensible Design: Create a format that allows for future extensions and modularization of flags.
- Language Agnostic: Support multiple programming languages through a common flag manifest format.
- Provider Independence: Work with any feature flag provider that can be adapted to the OpenFeature API.
- Full Provider Integration: The initial scope does not include creating tools to convert provider-specific configurations to the new flag manifest format.
- Validation of Flag Configs: The project will not initially focus on validating flag configurations for consistency with the flag manifest.
- General-Purpose Configuration: The project will not aim to create a general-purpose configuration tool for feature flags beyond the scope of the code generation tool.
- Runtime Flag Management: The CLI is not intended to replace provider SDKs for runtime flag evaluation.