OpenFeature vs. vendor SDKs—why bother?

OpenFeature lets you swap providers (LaunchDarkly, Unleash, Flipt) without rewriting app code. In practice, it’s insurance. We’ve migrated a client from a homegrown flag service to LaunchDarkly in a week because the app code stayed the same.

How do we prevent flag sprawl and config drift?

Treat flags as code via Terraform and PRs, enforce TTL and owner with OPA/Conftest in CI, and run weekly automation that opens cleanup PRs. Make a dashboard that shames stale flags next to your SLOs.

What if we’re mostly legacy monoliths?

Flags shine in monoliths. Start with a small SDK footprint, wire metrics by flag, and use a kill switch at the ingress or service mesh. We’ve done legacy modernization where flags gated risky refactors with near-zero downtime.

Can we use flags for experiments and still keep CFR low?

Yes—if experiments are gated by SLO-based analysis and limited blast radius. The problem isn’t experimentation; it’s flipping to 50% with no guardrails. Canary + Prometheus + automatic rollback keeps CFR in check.

Release-engineering · Nov 16, 2025 · 10 minute read

The Feature Flag System That Cut MTTR to 6 Minutes (Without Spiking CFR)

Feature flags are a safety system, not a growth hack. Here’s how to design them so experimentation moves the business without waking you at 2 a.m.

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The Feature Flag System That Cut MTTR to 6 Minutes (Without Spiking CFR)

Key takeaways

Implementation checklist