Stop Commenting Out Code: Mastering Feature Flags with Laravel Pennant

We have all been there. You are working on a killer new feature (like the AI Rewriter we built yesterday), but it is not quite ready for everyone.

Do you delay the deployment? Do you keep it in a separate git branch for weeks, creating a merge conflict nightmare?

No. You deploy it to production, but you turn it off.

This is called Feature Flagging. Laravel 10 introduced a first-party package called Pennant to handle this elegantly.

In this guide, we will implement Pennant to control our AI features and build a sleek Admin UI using Beartropy to toggle them on/off without touching code.

🚩 Phase 1: Installation

First, install Pennant and publish the configuration.

1composer require laravel/pennant
2php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Laravel\Pennant\PennantServiceProvider"
3php artisan migrate

Now, add the Pennant trait to your User model to unlock the magic methods.

1use Laravel\Pennant\Concerns\HasFeatures;
2 
3class User extends Authenticatable
4{
5    use HasFeatures;
6}

🧠 Phase 2: Defining Features

Let's define our ai-writer feature. We want it to be active purely for internal employees for now.

Open App\Providers\AppServiceProvider.php:

 1use Laravel\Pennant\Feature;
 2use App\Models\User;
 3 
 4public function boot(): void
 5{
 6    Feature::define('ai-writer', function (User $user) {
 7        // Only users with @beartropy.com emails see this
 8        return str_ends_with($user->email, '@beartropy.com');
 9    });
10}

🎨 Phase 3: The UI Integration

Remember the CreateProduct form from yesterday? We don't want regular users seeing that AI button yet.

Blade makes this incredibly clean with the @feature directive.

 1 
 2<x-bt-chat-input wire:model="description">
 3 
 4    <x-slot:actions>
 5 
 6        @feature('ai-writer')
 7            <button wire:click="refineText" ...>
 8                ✨ Rewrite with AI
 9            </button>
10        @endfeature
11    </x-slot:actions>
12 
13</x-bt-chat-input>

If I log in, I see the sparkles. If a customer logs in, they see a standard input. Zero code duplication.

🎛️ Phase 4: Building the Feature Manager

Defining features in code is fine, but a true "Admin Panel" lets you toggle features at runtime. Let's build a Livewire component ManageFeatures using Beartropy tables.

 1namespace App\Livewire\Admin;
 2 
 3use Livewire\Component;
 4use Laravel\Pennant\Feature;
 5use App\Models\User;
 6 
 7class ManageFeatures extends Component
 8{
 9    public $features = ['ai-writer', 'new-dashboard', 'dark-mode-beta'];
10 
11    public function toggleForUser($userId, $feature)
12    {
13        $user = User::find($userId);
14 
15        // Toggle the feature state for this specific user
16        Feature::for($user)->active($feature)
17            ? Feature::for($user)->deactivate($feature)
18            : Feature::for($user)->activate($feature);
19    }
20 
21    public function render()
22    {
23        return view('livewire.admin.manage-features', [
24            'users' => User::take(10)->get()
25        ]);
26    }
27}

The View (Beartropy Table):

 1<x-bt-card title="Feature Rollout Manager">
 2    <x-bt-table>
 3        <x-slot:head>
 4            <x-bt-table.heading>User</x-bt-table.heading>
 5            @foreach($features as $feature)
 6                <x-bt-table.heading class="text-center">{{ $feature }}</x-bt-table.heading>
 7            @endforeach
 8        </x-slot:head>
 9 
10        <x-slot:body>
11            @foreach($users as $user)
12                <x-bt-table.row>
13                    <x-bt-table.cell>
14                        <div class="font-medium">{{ $user->name }}</div>
15                        <div class="text-xs text-gray-500">{{ $user->email }}</div>
16                    </x-bt-table.cell>
17 
18                    @foreach($features as $feature)
19                        <x-bt-table.cell class="text-center">
20 
21                            <x-bt-toggle
22                                :checked="Feature::for($user)->active($feature)"
23                                wire:click="toggleForUser({{ $user->id }}, '{{ $feature }}')"
24                                color="success"
25                            />
26                        </x-bt-table.cell>
27                    @endforeach
28                </x-bt-table.row>
29            @endforeach
30        </x-slot:body>
31    </x-bt-table>
32</x-bt-card>

Summary

With Laravel Pennant and Beartropy, you have effectively separated "Deployment" from "Release".

1. Deploy your code on Friday (even if it's unfinished).
2. Keep the flag OFF.
3. On Monday morning, toggle the flag ON for 10% of users via your new Admin Dashboard.

This is how tech giants ship software. Now you can too.