Installation

There are various components to the Flagship platform that must be configured and installed appropriately. They will be described below.

MySQL

All Flagship data is stored in MySQL. This is currently the only primary database that can be used.

To use your own MySQL database, you must perform the following bootstrap steps:

  1. Create a flagship database. See here.
  2. Execute the statements listed here.
    • This will create all necessary tables.
  3. Create an initial Flagship owner user. See here.
    • This will create a user with username owner@flag.ship and password Test123!.
    • You can modify the email as needed.
    • It is recommended to reset your password from the UI.

The latest MySQL version is recommended.

Redis Cluster

Some Flagship data is cached in Redis Cluster. This is primarily to make the Flags API faster. The following data is stored here:

  • Encrypted project private keys
  • Feature flags
  • Context field keys and value types

The latest Redis Cluster version is recommended.

Admin API

The Admin API is described in detail here.

You can use the following Docker image from Dockerhub:

alexschimpf/flagship-admin:latest

This is the easiest way to get the Admin API up and running.

The full list of config options is defined here. The docker container can be configured by a number of environment variables. If certain environment variables are not specifically defined, a warning message will be logged on startup.

Variable Name Notes Default
SECRET_KEY Used to encrypt JWT tokens and project private keys. This should be a long random string with a length that is a multiple of 4. --
MYSQL_ECHO If truthy, all MySQL statements will be logged. This should definitely be disabled in production. 1
MYSQL_ISOLATION_LEVEL MySQL transaction isolation level READ COMMITTED
MYSQL_POOL_SIZE See here 5
MYSQL_MAX_OVERFLOW See here 10
MYSQL_CONN_STR Should follow the following format: mysql+mysqlconnector://USER:PASSWORD@HOSTNAME:PORT/flagship --
REDIS_CONN_STR Should follow the following format: redis://HOSTNAME:PORT --
UI_BASE_URL The UI base URL. This should NOT end with a trailing slash. http://localhost:3000
SESSION_COOKIE_KEY The login session cookie key name flagship-session
SESSION_COOKIE_MAX_AGE Login session cookie max age (in seconds) 86400 (i.e. 24 hours)
SESSION_COOKIE_DOMAIN The domain name tied to your login session cookie localhost
CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS A comma-separated list of allowed origins for CORS. Your Flagship UI base URL should be listed here. http://localhost:3000
SET_PASSWORD_TOKEN_TTL How long a password reset token lives before becoming invalid 86400 (i.e. 24 hours)
ENABLE_FAKE_AUTH This is used to skip authentication checks during testing. This should definitely be disabled in production. False
DEFAULT_LOCALE Currently this doesn't have any effect because "en-us" is the only supported locale. en-us
SMTP_HOST SMTP server hostname. Used for sending emails from Flagship. --
SMTP_PORT SMTP server port. Used for sending emails from Flagship. --
SMTP_USER SMTP server user. Used for sending emails from Flagship. --
SMTP_PASSWORD SMTP server password. Used for sending emails from Flagship. --
EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS This is the "From" email address used for emails from Flagship. This address should be owned by you. --

Flags API

The Flags API is described in detail here.

You can use the following Docker image from Dockerhub:

alexschimpf/flagship-flags:latest

This is the easiest way to get the Flags API up and running.

The full list of config options is defined here. The docker container can be configured by a number of environment variables. If certain environment variables are not specifically defined, a warning message will be logged on startup.

Variable Name Notes Default
SECRET_KEY Used to encrypt JWT tokens and project private keys. This should be a long random string with a length that is a multiple of 4. --
REDIS_CONN_STR Should follow the following format: redis://HOSTNAME:PORT --
CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS A comma-separated list of allowed origins for CORS. If you are interacting with the Flags API from a browser, this should be set to your website's base URL. http://localhost:3000
DEFAULT_LOCALE Currently this doesn't have any effect because "en-us" is the only supported locale. en-us

UI

The UI is described in detail here.

You can use the following Docker image from Dockerhub:

alexschimpf/flagship-frontend:latest

The docker container can be configured using the following environment variables:

Variable Name Notes Default
API_BASE_URL Base URL of the Admin API http://localhost:8000

SDK

To connect your system to Flagship's Flags API, you can use an available SDK. There are currently 2 supported SDKs - one for Javascript and one for Python. It should be trivial to support other programming languages or use your own implementation.

Example Project

See an example project here.