Merge branch 'feature-flags-mvc-docs' into 'master'

Add documentation for Feature Flags

Closes #7862

See merge request gitlab-org/gitlab-ee!7818

doc/user/project/index.md

@@ -74,6 +74,8 @@ common actions on issues or merge requests
      timeout (defines the maximum amount of time in minutes that a job is able run), custom path for `.gitlab-ci.yml`, test coverage parsing, pipeline's visibility, and much more
   - [GKE cluster integration](clusters/index.md): Connecting your GitLab project
     with Google Kubernetes Engine
+  - [Feature Flags](operations/feature_flags.md): Feature flags allow you to ship a project in
+    different flavors by dynamically toggling certain functionality **[PREMIUM]**
 - [GitLab Pages](pages/index.md): Build, test, and deploy your static
 website with GitLab Pages
 

doc/user/project/operations/feature_flags.md

-# Feature Flags
+# Feature Flags **[PREMIUM]**
 
-## Client libraries
+> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/11845) in GitLab 11.4.
+
+CAUTION: **Warning:**
+This an _alpha_ feature and is subject to change at any time without
+prior notice.
+
+Feature flags allow you to ship a project in different flavors by
+dynamically toggling certain functionality.
+
+## Overview
+
+Feature Flags offer a feature toggle system for your application. They enable teams
+to achieve Continuous Delivery by deploying new features to production at smaller
+batches for controlled testing, separating feature delivery from customer launch.
+This helps reducing risk and allows you to easily manage which features to enable.
+
+GitLab offers a Feature Flags interface that allows you to create, toggle and
+remove feature flags.
+
+## How it works
+
+Underneath, GitLab uses [unleash](https://github.com/Unleash/unleash), a feature
+toggle service. GitLab provides an API where your application can talk to and get the
+list of feature flags you set in GitLab.
+
+The application must be configured to talk to GitLab, so that's up to the
+developers to use a compatible [client library](#client-libraries) and
+integrate it in their app.
+
+By setting a flag active or inactive via GitLab, your application will automatically
+know which features to enable or disable respectively.
+
+## Adding a new feature flag
+
+To add a new feature flag:
+
+1. Navigate to your project's **Operations > Feature Flags**.
+1. Click on the **New Feature Flag** button.
+1. Give it a name.
+
+    NOTE: **Note:**
+    A name can contain only lowercase letters, digits, underscores (`_`)
+    and dashes (`-`), must start with a letter, and cannot end with a dash (`-`)
+    or an underscore (`_`).
+
+1. Give it a description (optional, 255 characters max).
+1. If you want to activate it, click on the "Active" checkbox.
+1. Click **Create feature flag**.
+
+Once a feature flag is created, the list of existing feature flags will be presented
+with ability to edit or remove them.
+
+To make a feature flag active or inactive, click the pencil icon to edit it,
+and toggle the "Active" checkbox.
+
+![Feature flags list](img/feature_flags_list.png)
+
+## Integrating with your application
+
+In order to use Feature Flags, you need to first
+[get the access credentials](#configuring-feature-flags) from GitLab and then
+prepare your application and hook it with a [client library](#client-libraries).
+
+### Configuring Feature Flags
+
+To get the access credentials that your application will need to talk to GitLab:
+
+1. Navigate to your project's **Operations > Feature Flags**.
+1. Click on the **Configure** button to see the values:
+    - **API URL**: URL where the client (application) connects to get a list of feature flags.
+    - **Instance ID**: Unique token that authorizes the retrieval of the feature flags.
+    - **Application name**: The name of the running environment. By default this is
+      set to `production`, but you can use whatever you want in your application
+      (e.g.,`staging`, `review/feature`).
+
+NOTE: **Note:**
+The meaning of these fields might change over time. For example, we are not sure
+if **Instance ID** will be single token or multiple tokens, assigned to the
+**Environment**. Also, **Application name** could describe the version of
+application instead of the running environment.
+
+### Client libraries
+
+GitLab currently implements a single backend that is compatible with
+[Unleash](https://github.com/Unleash/unleash#client-implementations) clients.
+
+Unleash clients allow the developers to define in the app's code the default
+values for flags. Each feature flag evaluation can express the desired
+outcome in case the flag isn't present on the provided configuration file.
+
+Unleash currently offers a number of official SDKs for various frameworks and
+a number of community contributed libraries.
+
+Official clients:
+
+- [unleash/unleash-client-java](https://github.com/unleash/unleash-client-java)
+- [unleash/unleash-client-node](https://github.com/unleash/unleash-client-node)
+- [unleash/unleash-client-go](https://github.com/unleash/unleash-client-go)
+- [unleash/unleash-client-ruby](https://github.com/unleash/unleash-client-ruby)
+
+Community contributed clients:
+
+- [stiano/unleash-client-dotnet](https://github.com/stiano/unleash-client-dotnet) (.Net Core)
+- [onybo/unleash-client-core](https://github.com/onybo/unleash-client-core) (.Net Core)
+- [aes/unleash-client-python](https://github.com/aes/unleash-client-python) (Python 3)
+
+### Golang application example
+
+Here's an example of how to integrate the feature flags in a Golang application:
+
+```golang
+package main
+
+import (
+    "io"
+    "log"
+    "net/http"
+
+    "github.com/Unleash/unleash-client-go"
+)
+
+type metricsInterface struct {
+}
+
+func init() {
+    unleash.Initialize(
+        unleash.WithUrl("https://gitlab.com/api/v4/feature_flags/unleash/42"),
+        unleash.WithInstanceId("29QmjsW6KngPR5JNPMWx"),
+        unleash.WithAppName("production"),
+        unleash.WithListener(&metricsInterface{}),
+    )
+}
+
+func helloServer(w http.ResponseWriter, req *http.Request) {
+    if unleash.IsEnabled("my_feature_name") {
+        io.WriteString(w, "Feature enabled\n")
+    } else {
+        io.WriteString(w, "hello, world!\n")
+    }
+}
+
+func main() {
+    http.HandleFunc("/", helloServer)
+    log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil))
+}
+```