open-feature / open-feature/flagd-testbed

Make reconnect/grace timing self-documenting (grace vs downtime is currently hidden in step code)

Open
#389 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@toddbaert is already working on this.

Since Aug 19, 2026.

Dominant language
Gherkin
Stars
5
Forks
14
Avg merge
3h 17m
Merged PRs (30d)
13

Description

Reconnect/grace scenarios depend on the provider's retryGracePeriod relative to the connection is lost for Ns downtime, but that grace value lives in each provider's step definitions (not the gherkin). So a reader sees e.g. lost for 8s -> expect error with no visible grace, and it's only correct because the step code happens to set grace below 8. This is confusing and couples downtimes to a hidden value.

Idea: make grace explicit in the feature via the existing an option "retryGracePeriod" ... step so the grace-vs-downtime relationship is self-documenting.

Caveat that stopped us from doing it now: it's inconsistent to surface only retryGracePeriod in the gherkin while retryBackoffMs, retryBackoffMaxMs, deadlineMs, keepAliveTime, etc. remain in step code. A proper fix should decide, consistently, which timing knobs belong in the feature vs. the harness (and requires every provider to stop overriding whatever moves into the gherkin).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.