Node.js SDK

Node.js, JavaScriptS/Typescript feature flag and tracking client for Bucket.co.

Installation

Install using yarn or npm with:

yarn add -s @bucketco/node-sdk or npm install -s @bucketco/node-sdk.

Other supported languages/frameworks are in the Supported languages documentation pages.

Basic usage

To get started you need to obtain your secret key from the environment settings in Bucket.

Secret keys are meant for use in server side SDKs only. Secret keys offer the users the ability to obtain information that is often sensitive and thus should not be used in client-side applications.

Bucket will load settings through the various environment variables automatically (see Configuring below).

Find the Bucket secret key for your development environment under environment settings in Bucket.
Set BUCKET_SECRET_KEY in your .env file
Create a bucket.ts file containing the following:

import { BucketClient } from "@bucketco/node-sdk";

// Create a new instance of the client with the secret key. Additional options
// are available, such as supplying a logger and other custom properties.
//
// We recommend that only one global instance of `client` should be created
// to avoid multiple round-trips to our servers.
export const bucketClient = new BucketClient();

// Initialize the client and begin fetching feature targeting definitions.
// You must call this method prior to any calls to `getFeatures()`,
// otherwise an empty object will be returned.
bucketClient.initialize().then({
  console.log("Bucket initialized!")
})

Once the client is initialized, you can obtain features along with the isEnabled status to indicate whether the feature is targeted for this user/company:

Note: If user.id or company.id is not given, the whole user or company object is ignored.

// configure the client
const boundClient = bucketClient.bindClient({
  user: {
    id: "john_doe",
    name: "John Doe",
    email: "john@acme.com",
  },
  company: {
    id: "acme_inc",
    name: "Acme, Inc.",
  },
});

// get the huddle feature using company, user and custom context to
// evaluate the targeting.
const { isEnabled, track } = boundClient.getFeature("huddle");

if (isEnabled) {
  // this is your feature gated code ...
  // send an event when the feature is used:
  track();

  // CAUTION: if you plan to use the event for automated feedback surveys
  // call `flush` immediately after `track`. It can optionally be awaited
  // to guarantee the sent happened.
  boundClient.flush();
}

You can also use the getFeatures() method which returns a map of all features:

// get the current features (uses company, user and custom context to
// evaluate the features).
const features = boundClient.getFeatures();
const bothEnabled =
  features.huddle?.isEnabled && features.voiceHuddle?.isEnabled;

High performance feature targeting

The Bucket Node SDK contacts the Bucket servers when you call initialize() and downloads the features with their targeting rules. These rules are then matched against the user/company information you provide to getFeatures() (or through bindClient(..).getFeatures()). That means the getFeatures() call does not need to contact the Bucket servers once initialize() has completed. BucketClient will continue to periodically download the targeting rules from the Bucket servers in the background.

Configuring

The Bucket Node.js SDK can be configured through environment variables, a configuration file on disk or by passing options to the BucketClient constructor. By default, the SDK searches for bucketConfig.json in the current working directory.

Option

Type

Description

Env Var

secretKey

string

The secret key used for authentication with Bucket's servers.

BUCKET_SECRET_KEY

logLevel

string

The log level for the SDK (e.g., "DEBUG", "INFO", "WARN", "ERROR"). Default: INFO

BUCKET_LOG_LEVEL

offline

boolean

Operate in offline mode. Default: false, except in tests it will default to true based off of the TEST env. var.

BUCKET_OFFLINE

apiBaseUrl

string

The base API URL for the Bucket servers.

BUCKET_API_BASE_URL

featureOverrides

Record<string, boolean>

An object specifying feature overrides for testing or local development. See example/app.test.ts for how to use featureOverrides in tests.

BUCKET_FEATURES_ENABLED, BUCKET_FEATURES_DISABLED

configFile

string

Load this config file from disk. Default: bucketConfig.json

BUCKET_CONFIG_FILE

Note: BUCKET_FEATURES_ENABLED, BUCKET_FEATURES_DISABLED are comma separated lists of features which will be enabled or disabled respectively.

bucketConfig.json example:

{
  "secretKey": "...",
  "logLevel": "warn",
  "offline": true,
  "apiBaseUrl": "https://proxy.slick-demo.com",
  "featureOverrides": {
    "huddles": true,
    "voiceChat": false
  }
}

When using a bucketConfig.json for local development, make sure you add it to your .gitignore file. You can also set these options directly in the BucketClient constructor. The precedence for configuration options is as follows, listed in the order of importance:

Options passed along to the constructor directly,
Environment variable,
The config file.

Type safe feature flags

To get type checked feature flags, add the list of flags to your bucket.ts file. Any feature look ups will now be checked against the list you maintain.

import { BucketClient } from "@bucketco/node-sdk";

// Extending the Features interface to define the available features
declare module "@bucketco/node-sdk" {
  interface Features {
    "show-todos": boolean;
    "create-todos": boolean;
    "delete-todos": boolean;
  }
}

export const bucketClient = new BucketClient();

bucketClient.initialize().then({
  console.log("Bucket initialized!")
  bucketClient.getFeature("invalid-feature") // feature doesn't exist
})

Using with Express

A popular way to integrate the Bucket Node.js SDK is through an express middleware.

import bucket from "./bucket";
import express from "express";
import { BoundBucketClient } from "@bucketco/node-sdk";

// Augment the Express types to include a `boundBucketClient` property on the
// `res.locals` object.
// This will allow us to access the BucketClient instance in our route handlers
// without having to pass it around manually
declare global {
  namespace Express {
    interface Locals {
      boundBucketClient: BoundBucketClient;
    }
  }
}

// Add express middleware
app.use((req, res, next) => {
  // Extract the user and company IDs from the request
  // You'll want to use a proper authentication and identification
  // mechanism in a real-world application
  const user = {
    id: req.user?.id,
    name: req.user?.name
    email: req.user?.email
  }

  const company = {
    id: req.user?.companyId
    name: req.user?.companyName
  }

  // Create a new BoundBucketClient instance by calling the `bindClient`
  // method on a `BucketClient` instance
  // This will create a new instance that is bound to the user/company given.
  const boundBucketClient = bucket.bindClient({ user, company });

  // Store the BoundBucketClient instance in the `res.locals` object so we
  // can access it in our route handlers
  res.locals.boundBucketClient = boundBucketClient;
  next();
});

// Now use res.locals.boundBucketClient in your handlers
app.get("/todos", async (_req, res) => {
  const { track, isEnabled } = res.locals.bucketUser.getFeature("show-todos");

  if (!isEnabled) {
    res.status(403).send({"error": "feature inaccessible"})
    return
  }

  ...
}

See example/app.ts for a full example.

Remote flag evaluation with stored context

If you don't want to provide context each time when evaluating feature flags but rather you would like to utilise the attributes you sent to Bucket previously (by calling updateCompany and updateUser) you can do so by calling getFeaturesRemote (or getFeatureRemote for a specific feature) with providing just userId and companyId. These methods will call Bucket's servers and feature flags will be evaluated remotely using the stored attributes.

// Update user and company attributes
client.updateUser("john_doe", {
  attributes: {
    name: "John O.",
    role: "admin",
  },
});

client.updateCompany("acme_inc", {
  attributes: {
    name: "Acme, Inc",
    tier: "premium"
  },
});
...

// This will evaluate feature flags with respecting the attributes sent previously
const features = await client.getFeaturesRemote("acme_inc", "john_doe");

NOTE: User and company attribute updates are processed asynchronously, so there might be a small delay between when attributes are updated and when they are available for evaluation.

Opting out of tracking

There are use cases in which you not want to be sending user, company and track events to Bucket.co. These are usually cases where you could be impersonating another user in the system and do not want to interfere with the data being collected by Bucket.

To disable tracking, bind the client using bindClient() as follows:

// binds the client to a given user and company and set `enableTracking` to `false`.
const boundClient = client.bindClient({ user, company, enableTracking: false });

boundClient.track("some event"); // this will not actually send the event to Bucket.

// the following code will not update the `user` nor `company` in Bucket and will
// not send `track` events either.
const { isEnabled, track } = boundClient.getFeature("user-menu");
if (isEnabled) {
  track();
}

Another way way to disable tracking without employing a bound client is to call getFeature() or getFeatures() by supplying enableTracking: false in the arguments passed to these functions.

[!NOTE] Note, however, that calling track(), updateCompany() or updateUser() in the BucketClient will still send tracking data. As such, it is always recommended to use bindClient() when using this SDK.

Flushing

It is highly recommended that users of this SDK manually call flush() method on process shutdown. The SDK employs a batching technique to minimize the number of calls that are sent to Bucket's servers. During process shutdown, some messages could be waiting to be sent, and thus, would be discarded if the buffer is not flushed.

A naive example:

process.on("SIGINT", () => {
  console.log("Flushing batch buffer...");
  client.flush().then(() => {
    process.exit(0);
  });
});

When you bind a client to a user/company, this data is matched against the targeting rules. To get accurate targeting, you must ensure that the user/company information provided is sufficient to match against the targeting rules you've created. The user/company data is automatically transferred to Bucket. This ensures that you'll have up-to-date information about companies and users and accurate targeting information available in Bucket at all time.

Tracking custom events and setting custom attributes

Tracking allows events and updating user/company attributes in Bucket. For example, if a customer changes their plan, you'll want Bucket to know about it, in order to continue to provide up-do-date targeting information in the Bucket interface.

The following example shows how to register a new user, associate it with a company and finally update the plan they are on.

// registers the user with Bucket using the provided unique ID, and
// providing a set of custom attributes (can be anything)
client.updateUser("user_id", {
  attributes: { longTimeUser: true, payingCustomer: false },
});
client.updateCompany("company_id", { userId: "user_id" });

// the user started a voice huddle
client.track("user_id", "huddle", { attributes: { voice: true } });

It's also possible to achieve the same through a bound client in the following manner:

const boundClient = client.bindClient({
  user: { id: "user_id", longTimeUser: true, payingCustomer: false },
  company: { id: "company_id" },
});

boundClient.track("huddle", { attributes: { voice: true } });

Some attributes are used by Bucket to improve the UI, and are recommended to provide for easier navigation:

name -- display name for user/company,
email -- the email of the user.

Attributes cannot be nested (multiple levels) and must be either strings, integers or booleans.

Managing `Last seen`

By default updateUser/updateCompany calls automatically update the given user/company Last seen property on Bucket servers.

You can control if Last seen should be updated when the events are sent by setting meta.active = false. This is often useful if you have a background job that goes through a set of companies just to update their attributes but not their activity.

Example:

client.updateUser("john_doe", {
  attributes: { name: "John O." },
  meta: { active: true },
});

client.updateCompany("acme_inc", {
  attributes: { name: "Acme, Inc" },
  meta: { active: false },
});

bindClient() updates attributes on the Bucket servers but does not automatically update Last seen.

Zero PII

The Bucket SDK doesn't collect any metadata and HTTP IP addresses are not being stored. For tracking individual users, we recommend using something like database ID as userId, as it's unique and doesn't include any PII (personal identifiable information). If, however, you're using e.g. email address as userId, but prefer not to send any PII to Bucket, you can hash the sensitive data before sending it to Bucket:

import { sha256 } from 'crypto-hash';

client.updateUser({ userId: await sha256("john_doe"), ... });

Typescript

Types are bundled together with the library and exposed automatically when importing through a package manager.

License

MIT License Copyright (c) 2024 Bucket ApS

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Last updated 9 hours ago

Installation

Basic usage

High performance feature targeting

Configuring

Type safe feature flags

Using with Express

Remote flag evaluation with stored context

Opting out of tracking

Flushing

Tracking custom events and setting custom attributes

Managing Last seen

Zero PII

Typescript

License

Managing `Last seen`