What Is a Toggle?

A toggle (pronounced tog-le) is a switch that changes one state into another. It typically has two opposing states, and a different appearance to indicate each state. Toggles are used in many applications, from physical switches found on machines to software programs. Toggle is also a verb meaning to move back and forth between settings or programs.

Toggles help dev teams roll out/back features during code deployment. As a result, they are especially valuable for teams practicing Continuous Delivery.

For example, imagine your team wants to test a new payment process in production. They want to make sure it works well, but they don’t want to disrupt all users. They can create a release toggle to isolate a group of users for testing, and roll back the feature as soon as they’ve determined it’s stable.

Using a toggle to test an important new feature can help you reduce your risk and avoid exposing all of your users to a potentially buggy feature. It can also speed up your release cycle and ensure that the features you do release are stable when they’re released.

Generally, toggles should be short-lived to minimize the impact of changing them. However, product-centric toggles may need to remain in place for longer periods. In this case, it is recommended that you use a platform like Kameleoon to manage your toggles and to remove them when they’re no longer needed. It’s also good practice to name your toggles something descriptive, so they’re easy to identify and manage.