Release policies

Overview

This topic explains how to use release policies to define preferred release methods for environments and standardize how teams configure feature releases.

Release policies help your organization guide teams toward consistent, measurable release practices. They define which release methods you recommend using in specific environments and provide configuration guidance to support those preferences.

Use release policies to:

• Reinforce standards across teams and environments
• Encourage safer release methods in production
• Help teams avoid risky or inconsistent release setups
• Improve adoption of progressive and guarded releases

A release is a change to one or more flags that affects end users or systems. Each release uses a release method to control how it is delivered.

Release methods include:

• Manual release: Delivers a specific variation to all targeted contexts without staging. This is the default method.
• Percentage release: Delivers a variation to a fixed percentage of contexts.
• Progressive release: Gradually increases the percentage of contexts receiving a variation over time.
• Guarded release: Increases exposure while monitoring metrics for regressions.

Release policies apply to progressive and guarded releases. You cannot use release policies to configure manual and percentage releases.

To learn more about guarded and progressive releases, read Releasing features with LaunchDarkly.

Best practices

Release policies are most effective when they reflect your organization’s goals for rollout safety and consistency. Consider the following practices to improve policy adoption and clarity:

• Create a default release policy to promote consistent release methods across environments.
• Use scoped policies to apply stricter controls in production or other critical environments.
• Configure rollout settings, such as rollback behavior or sample size, to reduce manual setup.
• Use clear, descriptive names to help teams understand when a policy applies.

By combining scoped policies with default fallbacks, you can promote a scalable and consistent approach to feature delivery.

How release policies behave

Release policies define preferred release methods for one or more environments in a project. If a user selects a release method that does not match the policy for the environment, LaunchDarkly displays a recommended label and describes how the configuration differs. The label always appears when the selected method differs from the policy. Users can continue without making changes.

Release policies appear in the flag targeting UI as part of the release method selection process.

Each policy has a scope that determines where it applies. You can assign a policy to one or more environments, or create a default policy with no defined scope. The default policy applies to all environments not explicitly targeted by another policy.

When multiple policies apply to a flag, LaunchDarkly uses the one with the highest priority. Policy order determines priority. You can change priority by reordering policies in the Release settings tab or using the API.

Create and manage release policies

To create a release policy:

1. Navigate to Project settings and open the Release settings tab. The “Release settings” panel appears.

2. Click Create release policy.
3. Enter a name for the policy. LaunchDarkly generates a key based on the name, which you can edit.
4. Click + Add condition. In the dropdown, click Environments.
5. Select an environment where the policy will be applied. To create a default policy, leave the environment list empty.
6. Under “Release method,” select a preferred release method.
7. If applicable, define configuration settings for the release method, such as minimum sample size or rollback behavior.
8. Click Save policy.

LaunchDarkly adds the new policy to the list and assigns it a rank based on its order. If you want to change which policy has priority in a given environment, drag the policies into the desired order. You can also edit and delete policies from the Release settings tab.

Examples

These examples show how organizations use release policies to promote safer, more consistent release practices across different environments.

Require guarded releases in production

In this example, an organization wants to ensure all production releases follow a standardized risk mitigation process. To support this, they create a default release policy that defines guarded release as the preferred method for the production environment.

If the user selects a different method, such as manual or percentage rollout, LaunchDarkly displays a recommended label to indicate that the configuration does not match the preferred policy.

This guidance helps teams apply consistent risk checks and avoid unmonitored rollouts in critical environments.

Recommend progressive releases in staging

In this example, the organization prefers to test new features in staging using progressive releases. They create a policy that recommends progressive releases in all staging environments.

If a developer targets a flag for release in staging, LaunchDarkly highlights progressive release as the recommended method and provides configuration guidance based on the policy.

This helps teams align with organizational goals for staged testing and rollout readiness.