nself flag

Manage feature flags backed by Redis for canary releases and kill-switches.

Quick start

# List all feature flags and their current state
nself flag list

# Enable a feature flag
nself flag set new-checkout true

# Read a single flag
nself flag get new-checkout

Synopsis

nself flag list [FLAGS]
nself flag get <NAME> [FLAGS]
nself flag set <NAME> <VALUE> [FLAGS]
nself flag history [NAME] [FLAGS]

Description

nself flag manages feature flags stored in Redis. Flags are string-keyed boolean or string values that your application reads at runtime via the Hasura GraphQL API or the nSelf SDK. Because they live in Redis, changes take effect immediately — no rebuild or redeploy required.

Flags are used for canary releases (enable a feature for a subset of users via application logic), kill-switches (disable a misbehaving feature without a deploy), and A/B toggles. The flag system itself is kept minimal by design: it stores key-value pairs. Percentage rollout, user targeting, and other advanced logic are implemented in application code.

Flag changes are appended to an immutable audit log in Redis. Usenself flag history to see who changed a flag and when.

Subcommands

nself flag list

Print all flags, their current values, and the last modified timestamp.

nself flag list
# NAME                VALUE    LAST MODIFIED
# new-checkout        true     2026-05-07 09:12 UTC
# dark-mode           false    2026-04-30 14:00 UTC
# api-rate-limit      500      2026-05-01 08:00 UTC

nself flag get <NAME>

Print the current value of a single flag. Exits with code 1 if the flag does not exist.

nself flag get new-checkout
# true

nself flag get new-checkout --json
# {"name":"new-checkout","value":true,"updated_at":"2026-05-07T09:12:00Z"}

nself flag set <NAME> <VALUE>

Create or update a flag. VALUE is parsed as a boolean (true/false) or left as a string for non-boolean flags.

# Boolean flag
nself flag set new-checkout true
nself flag set maintenance-mode false

# String flag (useful for A/B variant names)
nself flag set homepage-variant control

# Numeric string
nself flag set api-rate-limit 1000

nself flag history [NAME]

Show the change history for a specific flag, or for all flags if NAMEis omitted. Entries include timestamp, old value, new value, and the actor (CLI user or API key that made the change).

nself flag history new-checkout
# TIMESTAMP              OLD     NEW    ACTOR
# 2026-05-07 09:12 UTC   false   true   aric@example.com
# 2026-04-30 12:00 UTC   <new>   false  aric@example.com

nself flag history   # all flags

Flags

Examples

Dark-launch a feature (flag off, code deployed)

# Deploy the code with the flag-gated feature
nself flag set new-payments false

# When ready to enable:
nself flag set new-payments true

Kill-switch a misbehaving endpoint

nself flag set recommendation-engine false --env prod
# Application checks this flag and disables the feature immediately

Audit flag changes over the last week

nself flag history --json | jq '[.[] | select(.timestamp > "2026-05-01")]'

Check a flag in a CI health check

VALUE=$(nself flag get maintenance-mode --env prod)
if [ "$VALUE" = "true" ]; then
  echo "Site is in maintenance mode — skipping smoke tests"
  exit 0
fi

List all flags in prod as JSON

nself flag list --env prod --json

Environment variables

• NSELF_ENV — default target environment when --env is not specified
• REDIS_URL — override the Redis connection used for flag storage

Exit codes

• 0 — success
• 1 — generic error (Redis unreachable, flag not found)
• 2 — invalid arguments

Related

• nself redis — direct Redis operations
• nself status — overall service health including Redis