Promote Feature

Development

promote-feature

Promote Feature is an Agent Skill for development published in the warpdotdev/warp repository on GitHub: a SKILL.md instruction file an AI agent can load to do this task.

Promote a feature-flagged feature to Dogfood, Preview, or Stable in the Warp codebase. Use when a feature behind a FeatureFlag is ready to roll out to a broader audience, including wiring up the compile-time/runtime bridge and deferring flag cleanup safely.

View on GitHub ↗

QUICK START

How to use this skill

Bring this guide into your coding agent with a prompt tailored to the tool you use.

Open your project in Codex.
Copy and paste the prompt below.
Review files and risks before approving any action.

Prompt to paste

Inspect the Agent Skill at https://github.com/warpdotdev/warp/blob/HEAD/.agents/skills/promote-feature/SKILL.md and all supporting files. Report provenance, permissions, scripts, dependencies, and security risks. Propose an exact installation into .agents/skills/promote-feature, but wait for my approval before writing files or running scripts.

Copying this prompt does not install or run the skill. Review third-party files before use.

promote-feature

Guides the staged promotion of a gated FeatureFlag variant to Dogfood, Preview, or Stable, and schedules the follow-up cleanup.

Overview

Feature flags have two interacting layers:

Runtime (warp_core/src/features.rs): DOGFOOD_FLAGS, PREVIEW_FLAGS, RELEASE_FLAGS — enabled per-channel at startup.
Compile-time (app/Cargo.toml + app/src/lib.rs): Cargo features in [features]. The default = [...] array enables a feature for all builds. enabled_features() in app/src/lib.rs bridges each Cargo feature to its FeatureFlag variant via #[cfg(feature = "...")].

Do not remove the flag immediately after promoting to Stable. Keep it for at least 1–2 release cycles so a rollback is a one-line PR (remove the entry from default). Use the remove-feature-flag skill for the cleanup step later.

TUI note

The per-channel arrays in warp_core/src/features.rs (DOGFOOD_FLAGS/PREVIEW_FLAGS/RELEASE_FLAGS) are shared and drive both the GUI desktop app (app/) and the headless TUI (crates/warp_tui) at runtime. The app/Cargo.toml default + app/src/lib.rs enabled_features() compile-time bridge is GUI-app-only. If a promoted feature should also reach the TUI, make sure it is enabled at runtime for the target channel (the shared arrays already do this) and, if the feature relies on a compile-time Cargo feature, that the TUI binary (crates/warp_tui/Cargo.toml) enables it too.

Promote to Dogfood

Add the flag to DOGFOOD_FLAGS in warp_core/src/features.rs:

pub const DOGFOOD_FLAGS: &[FeatureFlag] = &[
    // ...
    FeatureFlag::YourFeature,
];

No other file changes needed.

Promote to Preview

Add to PREVIEW_FLAGS in warp_core/src/features.rs.
Remove from DOGFOOD_FLAGS if present — Preview flags are automatically included in Dogfood builds.

pub const PREVIEW_FLAGS: &[FeatureFlag] = &[
    // ...
    FeatureFlag::YourFeature,
];

Promote to Stable

This requires changes in three files.

1. `app/Cargo.toml` — add to `default`

Add the snake_case feature name to the default = [...] array:

default = [
    # ...
    "your_feature_name",
]

Prefer this over adding to RELEASE_FLAGS (see comment at warp_core/src/features.rs:787-790). It compiles the feature into all builds and enables a one-line rollback.

2. `app/src/lib.rs` — add to `enabled_features()` bridge

Add a #[cfg(...)] entry inside the flags.extend([...]) block in enabled_features(), following the existing pattern:

#[cfg(feature = "your_feature_name")]
FeatureFlag::YourFeature,

Place it near logically related entries.

3. `warp_core/src/features.rs` — remove from `PREVIEW_FLAGS` / `DOGFOOD_FLAGS`

Remove the variant from whichever arrays it currently lives in:

pub const PREVIEW_FLAGS: &[FeatureFlag] = &[
    // Remove FeatureFlag::YourFeature,
];

Validate

./script/format
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features --tests -- -D warnings

Create a follow-up Linear issue

After the PR lands, create a Linear issue to remind the team to remove the flag. Use the Linear MCP tool:

save_issue(
  title: "Remove FeatureFlag::YourFeature after stabilization",
  team: <your team>,
  assignee: "me",
  description: "FeatureFlag::YourFeature was promoted to Stable in <PR link>. Remove the flag and dead code branches after 1–2 release cycles. Follow the `remove-feature-flag` skill.",
  labels: ["tech-debt"],
  priority: 4  // Low
)