Migrate from Flagsmith

Overview

Flagsmith and ShipSilently are closely aligned in their feature set. Both support boolean flags, remote config, and user/segment targeting. This guide covers replacing the Flagsmith SDK with ShipSilently with minimal code changes.

Before you begin

• You have an existing Flagsmith project (Cloud, on-premises, or open source) with flags in use
• You have a ShipSilently account (create one free)
• Your application uses the Flagsmith Node.js or JavaScript SDK

Step 1: Set up your ShipSilently project

1. Sign in to ShipSilently and create a new project.
2. Copy your API key from Settings → API Keys.

Step 2: Map Flagsmith concepts to ShipSilently

Flagsmith	ShipSilently
Feature Flag	Flag
Remote Config / Feature value	Flag variant
Identity	User context
Segment	Targeting rule
Environment API key	API key

Step 3: Recreate your flags

For each Flagsmith feature:

1. Create a flag in ShipSilently with the same feature name as the key
2. Recreate segment rules as targeting rules in the ShipSilently dashboard

Flagsmith remote config: If you use Flagsmith’s remote config (feature value as a string/number), use ShipSilently’s variant flags to store the same configuration values.

Step 4: Replace the SDK

# Remove Flagsmith SDK
npm uninstall flagsmith-nodejs

# Install ShipSilently
npm install @shipsilently/node

Step 5: Update initialization

Before (Flagsmith):

import Flagsmith from 'flagsmith-nodejs';

const flagsmith = new Flagsmith({
  environmentKey: process.env.FLAGSMITH_API_KEY,
});

After (ShipSilently):

import { initialize } from '@shipsilently/node';

export const flags = initialize(process.env.SHIPSILENTLY_KEY);

Step 6: Update flag evaluations

Before (Flagsmith):

// Get flags for an identity
const flags = await flagsmith.getIdentityFlags(user.id, {
  email: user.email,
  plan: user.plan,
});

const showNewDashboard = flags.isFeatureEnabled('new-dashboard');

After (ShipSilently):

const showNewDashboard = await flags.getFlag('new-dashboard', {
  userId: user.id,
  email: user.email,
  plan: user.plan,
});

API comparison

Flagsmith	ShipSilently
flagsmith.getIdentityFlags(id, traits)	flags.getFlag(key, context)
flags.isFeatureEnabled(name)	flags.getFlag(key, context) returns boolean
flags.getFeatureValue(name)	flags.getVariant(key, context)
Per-identity network call	In-memory evaluation after initial fetch

Step 7: Remote config migration

If you use Flagsmith’s remote config feature to store values like strings or numbers:

Before (Flagsmith):

const buttonColor = flags.getFeatureValue('button-color'); // '#00E5FF'

After (ShipSilently):

const buttonColor = await flags.getVariant('button-color', {
  userId: user.id,
}); // '#00E5FF'

Step 8: Set your environment variable

# Remove
FLAGSMITH_API_KEY=xxxx

# Add
SHIPSILENTLY_KEY=ss-live-xxxx

Step 9: Verify and cut over

1. Deploy to staging using SHIPSILENTLY_KEY
2. Verify flag evaluations show up in the ShipSilently Analytics dashboard
3. Deploy to production and remove the Flagsmith SDK and credentials

What’s next

• Read the ShipSilently SDK docs
• Configure targeting rules and percentage rollouts in the dashboard
• Invite your team in Settings → Team