grafana/contribute/feature-toggles.md

# Feature toggle guide

This guide helps you to add your feature behind a _feature flag_, code that lets you enable or disable a feature without redeploying Grafana.

## Steps to adding a feature toggle

1. Define the feature toggle in [registry.go](../pkg/services/featuremgmt/registry.go). To see what each feature stage means, look at the [related comments](../pkg/services/featuremgmt/features.go). If you are a community member, use the [CODEOWNERS](../.github/CODEOWNERS) file to determine which team owns the package you are updating.
2. Run the Go tests mentioned at the top of [this file](../pkg/services/featuremgmt/toggles_gen.go). This generates all the additional files needed: `toggles_gen` for the backend, `grafana-data` for the frontend, and docs. To run the test, run `make gen-feature-toggles`.

## How to use the toggle in your code

Once your feature toggle is defined, you can then wrap your feature around a check if the feature flag is enabled on that Grafana instance.

Examples:

- [Backend](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/feb2b5878b3e3ec551d64872c35edec2a0187812/pkg/services/authn/clients/session.go#L57): Use the `IsEnabled` function and pass in your feature toggle.
- [Frontend](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/feb2b5878b3e3ec551d64872c35edec2a0187812/public/app/features/search/service/folders.ts#L14): Check the config for your feature toggle.