open-feature / open-feature/python-sdk

Is InMemoryFlag.state intended to be honoured? DISABLED is never read

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question
Lenguaje dominante
Python
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Merge medio
2 h 37 min
PR fusionados (30 d)
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Descripción

InMemoryFlag declares a state field with an ENABLED/DISABLED enum, and as far as I can tell nothing ever reads it. Asking because "the field is there for API compatibility and honouring it was never promised" is a perfectly good answer, and I would rather have it recorded than assume a bug.

What I see

openfeature/provider/in_memory_provider.py:

class InMemoryFlag(typing.Generic[T_co]):
    class State(StrEnum):
        ENABLED = "ENABLED"
        DISABLED = "DISABLED"

    default_variant: str
    variants: dict[str, T_co]
    flag_metadata: FlagMetadata = field(default_factory=dict)
    state: State = State.ENABLED        # line 47
    ...

    def resolve(self, evaluation_context):
        if self.context_evaluator:
            return self.context_evaluator(self, evaluation_context or EvaluationContext())
        return FlagResolutionDetails(
            value=self.variants[self.default_variant],
            reason=Reason.STATIC,
            variant=self.default_variant,
            flag_metadata=self.flag_metadata,
        )

grep -n state in_memory_provider.py returns exactly one line — the declaration above. State.DISABLED does not appear anywhere else in the package.

So a flag constructed with state=State.DISABLED resolves to its own defaultVariant with reason STATIC, as though it were enabled.

Why I think it may be worth changing

For comparison, across the other in-memory reference providers:

SDK field behaviour on a disabled flag
JavaScript disabled: boolean caller's default, reason: DISABLED, no error code
Java disabled (isDisabled) caller's default, reason: DISABLED, no error code
Go State enum caller's default + reason: DISABLED, but also a GENERAL error — reported as go-sdk#552, fixed by #574
Python state enum resolves as if enabled

Two of the four substitute the caller's default with reason: DISABLED and no error; Go agreed that was the right answer when it was raised. That is convention rather than specification — I could find no numbered requirement saying what a provider owes a disabled flag — so this is not a conformance claim, just a consistency observation.

Also worth noting the two shapes in the ecosystem: state: ENABLED|DISABLED in Go, Python and flagd's flag format, versus disabled: boolean in JavaScript, Java and Appendix B's test-flags.json. Not something to fix here, but it is why the field probably exists in this shape.

Questions

  1. Is state intended to be honoured by resolve(), or is it carried for configuration compatibility only?
  2. If it should be honoured — is the intended behaviour the caller's default with reason: DISABLED and no error code, matching JavaScript and Java?
  3. Would you rather the field were removed than implemented, if honouring it is not wanted? A declared field that is never read seems the more surprising of the two states.

Context

Found while building the cross-language provider conformance suite proposed in open-feature/spec#417. A new gated @disabled-flags capability is left undeclared for the Python in-memory suites on the strength of this, and the four scenarios skip rather than fail — so nothing is blocked. Recording the question so the reason for that gate is not just in my head.

Guía de contribución

Abrir la guía de contribución

Primeros pasos

  1. Lee el issue completo y luego la guía de contribución del proyecto.
  2. Comenta en el issue que vas a ocuparte — evita que dos personas hagan lo mismo.
  3. Haz un fork del repositorio y trabaja en una rama.
  4. Abre un pull request que haga referencia al número del issue.

Línea de trabajo

Comienza en openfeature/provider/in_memory_provider.py, en InMemoryFlag.state y resolve(), y compara después el comportamiento documentado entre lenguajes para los flags deshabilitados que se describe en el issue. Confirma si Python debe respetar DISABLED o conservar el campo únicamente por compatibilidad. El trabajo estará terminado cuando se haya decidido y registrado el comportamiento previsto, y se haya actualizado el comportamiento relevante del proveedor en memoria o las pruebas si los maintainers deciden hacer un cambio.

Escrito por el modelo de indexación a partir del texto del issue.

Evaluación

Stack tecnológico
python
Área
api
Tipo de issue
Error
Dificultad
4/5
Tiempo estimado
3-5 días
Estado de actividad
Activo
Claridad
Bastante claro
Aptitud para principiantes
38/100

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