Introduction
Feature flag rollouts are a critical part of modern product development, enabling teams to gradually release new features to subsets of users, perform A/B testing, and quickly roll back changes if needed. However, coordinating these rollouts across multiple teams—such as product managers, developers, QA, and customer success—can become cumbersome. Manual communications and tracking slow down releases and increase the chance of errors.
In this guide, we’ll build an automated workflow using n8n, an open-source workflow automation tool, to coordinate feature flag rollouts. This automation will streamline notifications, update tracking dashboards, and ensure all stakeholders stay informed at each stage of the rollout. Our target audience includes product teams, automation engineers, and operations specialists responsible for release management.
Tools and Services Integrated
– n8n: to orchestrate the entire automation
– LaunchDarkly (or any feature flag management tool with API access): to monitor feature flag status
– Slack: to send notifications to relevant channels
– Google Sheets: to maintain a live rollout tracker accessible to the team
– Email (SMTP or Gmail): to notify individual stakeholders if needed
Workflow Overview
The workflow monitors the feature flag state and rollout percentage through LaunchDarkly’s API. When a flag rollout begins, it triggers the automation. Notifications are sent via Slack with details and next steps. The Google Sheet tracker is updated automatically to reflect current rollout progress and any changes. Optional email alerts can be sent to PMs or customer support when key milestones are reached (e.g., 25%, 50%, 100% rollout).
Step-by-Step Tutorial
Prerequisites
– An n8n instance accessible via web
– API Keys for LaunchDarkly, Slack bot or token, Google Sheets API (credentials and spreadsheet setup), and email (SMTP or Gmail API)
Step 1: Set up Google Sheets
– Create a spreadsheet named “Feature Flag Rollouts Tracker”
– Columns: Feature Name, Flag Key, Current Rollout %, Status, Last Updated
– Share the sheet with your Google service account email to allow API access
Step 2: Configure n8n credentials
– In n8n, add credentials for Google Sheets, Slack, LaunchDarkly (via HTTP Request node with API key), and SMTP/Gmail
Step 3: Create Trigger Node
– Since LaunchDarkly does not provide webhook triggers for flag updates, we’ll use an n8n Cron node
– Configure the Cron node to poll LaunchDarkly API at an interval (e.g., every 5 minutes)
Step 4: Add HTTP Request Node to fetch feature flags
– Use LaunchDarkly’s API to GET the current feature flags and their rollout percentages
– Endpoint example: GET https://app.launchdarkly.com/api/v2/flags/{projectKey}/{environmentKey}
– Parse the response JSON to extract flags’ statuses and rollout percentages
Step 5: Compare previous and current states (optional)
– To avoid redundant notifications, maintain a lightweight state storage in n8n’s workflow or Google Sheets
– Retrieve the last known rollout percentages and statuses from the sheet
– Compare with current data to detect changes or milestones passed
Step 6: Conditional Node – Identify changes
– If a feature flag’s state or rollout % has changed since last check, proceed
– Particularly check for milestones: 0->start rollout, 25%, 50%, 100%
Step 7: Update Google Sheets Node
– For changed flags, update the appropriate row with the current rollout %, status, and timestamp
Step 8: Send Slack Notification Node
– Format a message with flag name, new rollout %, and next action items
– Post to designated Slack channel (e.g., #product-rollouts)
Example Slack message:
“`
Feature Flag Update: ‘NewDashboard’ rollout at 50%
Status: Gradual rollout in progress
Next Steps: Monitor performance and prepare to scale to 100%
“`
Step 9: Optional Email Notification Node
– If a milestone is hit (e.g., 100%), send an email to stakeholders like PM and Customer Success
– Include flag details and links to documentation
Step 10: Handle errors and retries
– Add error handling nodes to capture API errors or rate limits
– Use the n8n error trigger to notify admins if the workflow fails
Common Errors and Tips
– API rate limiting: Ensure your polling interval is reasonable given API limits
– Authentication failures: Always verify your API keys have the proper scopes
– Data consistency: Use Google Sheets as a single source of truth for rollout states
– Slack formatting: Use markdown within Slack messages for clarity
Scaling the Workflow
– Add support for multiple LaunchDarkly projects or environments by iterating over them in the workflow
– Integrate additional notifications, e.g., Jira tickets or PagerDuty alerts for failed rollouts
– Include rollback detection by monitoring flag state for sudden decreases
– Build a dashboard visualization using Google Data Studio linked to the spreadsheet for high-level rollout insights
Summary
Coordinating feature flag rollouts manually can slow down your release cycles and increase risks. By automating this process with n8n and integrating your feature flag platform, communication tools, and tracking sheets, you can improve visibility, collaboration, and control across teams.
This tutorial demonstrated how to build a robust, scalable workflow to monitor rollouts continuously, notify stakeholders proactively, and keep an up-to-date rollout tracker without manual effort. With these building blocks, your product team can confidently accelerate releases while maintaining safety and transparency.
Bonus Tip
For more dynamic control, consider integrating feedback loops from monitoring tools that detect feature-related errors or performance degradation. n8n can listen to alerts from services like Datadog or Sentry and automatically pause or rollback feature flags by invoking the LaunchDarkly API, closing the automation loop end-to-end.