How to Create Feature Toggles in AEM

In this is a tutorial I'll show how to configure and create Feature toggles in AEM using sling feature flags, above is the vid and below you will find some useful notes.

1. 1.

   Pre-reqs

   • Have access to an Adobe Experience Manager instance. You will need aem 6.4 Service Pack 2 or newer.
     Have Maven installed, understand how it works and also understand how to use Adobe's archetype, you can watch my video about maven here: Creating an AEM application using Maven and Adobe's archetype
2. 2.

   Implementing feature toggles in AEM

   • If needed, create the new aem-feature-toggles application by using adobe’s archetype

     mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.4:generate "-DarchetypeGroupId=com.adobe.granite.archetypes" "-DarchetypeArtifactId=aem-project-archetype" "-DarchetypeVersion=19" "-DarchetypeCatalog=https://repo.adobe.com/nexus/content/groups/public/" "-DgroupId=co.dlighthouse.aem.featuretoggles" "-DartifactId=aem-feature-toggles" "-Dversion=0.1.0-SNAPSHOT" "-Dpackage=co.dlighthouse.aem.featuretoggles" "-DappsFolderName=feature-toggles" "-DconfFolderName=feature-toggles" "-DartifactName=Feature Toggles Example" "-DcomponentGroupName=Feature Toggles Example" "-DcontentFolderName=feature-toggles" "-DcssId=feature-toggles" "-DpackageGroup=feature-toggles" "-DsiteName=Feature Toggles Example" "-DoptionAemVersion=6.5.0"
     

   • Create a new file named org.apache.sling.featureflags.impl.ConfiguredFeature-someFeature.xml inside your /apps/my-app/config folder

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
     <jcr:root xmlns:sling="http://sling.apache.org/jcr/sling/1.0"
         xmlns:jcr="http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0" jcr:primaryType="sling:OsgiConfig"
         name="some-feature"
         description="This is Some Feature"
         enabled="{Boolean}false"/>
     

   • First, Import the Features interface

     import org.apache.sling.featureflags.Features;
     

   • Inject it into the model by using the OSGiService annotation

     @OSGiService
     private Features features;
     

   • Add the code to enable or disable the new feature

     if(features.isEnabled("some-feature")) {
         //New functionality that is only enabled when the feature toggle is enabled
     }
     else {
         //Original functionality that is disabled when the feature toggle is disabled
     }
     

   • Build and deploy your application

     mvn clean install -PautoInstallPackage -Padobe-public
     

3. 3.

   Configure the Feature Toggle in AEM

   • Go to the Felix console(/system/console/configMgr), look for ConfiguredFeature then click on the “someFeature”

     

     
     
     Enable the feature toogle and after that check that the new feature is working now

     

     
     
4. 4.

   Resources

   Github link for the code

   Feature Toggles (aka Feature Flags) - Martin Fowler

   Feature Flags - Optimizely

   Feature Flags - Sling

   Feature Flags - aemtreasury

   Sling – Feature Flags in AEM - aemlab