Entitlements: Use Feature Flags for Permanent Access Control
Entitlements use permanent feature flags to control long-term access, like a bouncer for your app's VIP section. This is how you manage premium tiers or special user permissions, ensuring the right customers always see the right features.
WHY IT EXISTS Systems need to provide different experiences to different users based on their status, like paid versus free. Hard-coding this logic is brittle, slow to change, and tightly couples business rules with application code. Entitlements solve this by externalizing access control into a manageable system.
THE MENTAL MODEL Think of an entitlement as a specific, long-term use of feature flag targeting. While general targeting can be for a temporary rollout or experiment, an entitlement is a permanent rule that defines a user's level of access, like a subscription tier. It's a bouncer with a permanent guest list, not a one-night event promoter.
HOW IT WORKS You create a "permanent" feature flag, one not intended for cleanup. Then, you define a segment of users, such as "premium_customers". The flag's targeting rule is set to serve a specific variation (e.g., true) to users within that segment. Your application code checks this flag to decide whether to show a feature or unlock functionality. This is safer than changing permission levels directly in a database, as access can be toggled instantly via the flag without a deployment.
WHEN TO USE IT Use entitlements for managing long-lived differences in user experience. Three common scenarios are: first, managing subscription tiers like "premium" vs. "standard" customers; second, localizing an application by showing different content based on a user's region; third, granting special permissions to internal teams or for temporary privilege escalation during support incidents.
WHEN NOT TO USE IT Do not use the entitlement pattern for temporary feature rollouts or A/B tests. Those use cases require "temporary" flags that are designed to be cleaned up after the rollout or experiment is complete. Using a permanent flag for a temporary purpose creates technical debt and clutters your flag dashboard with obsolete rules.
ONE CANONICAL EXAMPLE A media site wants to give paying subscribers an ad-free experience and exclusive articles. They create a permanent boolean feature flag called has-premium-access and a user segment called "Subscribers". The flag is configured to return true for any user in the "Subscribers" segment. The application frontend checks this flag: if true, it hides ad components and shows links to premium articles. If a user cancels, they are simply removed from the segment, and their access is instantly revoked on the next flag evaluation.
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