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Android Suite

Deploy the Harness FME Android Suite for a unified solution combining feature management and performance monitoring in Android applications.

This guide provides detailed information about our Android Suite, an SDK designed to leverage the full power of FME. The Android Suite is built on top of the Android SDK and the Android RUM Agent, offering a unified solution, optimized for Android development.

The Suite provides the all-encompassing essential programming interface for working with your FME feature flags, as well as capabilities for automatically tracking performance measurements and user events. Code currently using Android SDK or Android RUM Agent can be easily upgraded to Android Suite, which is designed as a drop-in replacement.

Before you begin

This library is designed for Android applications written in Java or Kotlin and is compatible with Android SDK versions 19 and later (4.4 Kit Kat).

Initialization

Set up FME in your code base with the following two steps:

1. Import the Suite into your project

Import the SDK into your project including the dependency as follows:

implementation 'io.split.client:android-suite:2.1.2'

2. Instantiate the Suite and create a new SDK client

In your code, instantiate the Suite client as shown below.

// SDK key
String sdkKey = "YOUR_SDK_KEY";

// Build Suite configuration by default
SplitSuiteConfiguration config = SplitSuiteConfiguration.builder().build();

// Create a new user key to be evaluated
// key represents your internal user id, or the account id that 
// the user belongs to
String matchingKey = "key";
Key k = new Key(matchingKey);

// Create Suite
SplitSuite suite = SplitSuiteBuilder.build(sdkKey, k, config, getApplicationContext());

// Get SDK suite client instance
SplitClient client = suite.client();
// SDK key
val sdkKey = "YOUR_SDK_KEY"

// Build Suite configuration by default
val config: SplitSuiteConfiguration = SplitSuiteConfiguration.builder().build()

// Create a new user key to be evaluated
// key represents your internal user id, or the account id that 
// the user belongs to
val matchingKey = "key"
val key: Key = Key(matchingKey)

// Create Suite
val splitFactory: SplitSuite =
    SplitSuiteBuilder.build(sdkKey, key, config, applicationContext)

// Get SDK factory client instance
val client: SplitClient = splitFactory.client()

When the Suite is instantiated, it starts synchronizing feature flag and segment definitions from Harness servers, and also starts collecting performance and user events for the configured key and its optional traffic type (which if not set, defaults to 'user').

We recommend instantiating the SDK factory once as a singleton and reusing it throughout your application.

Configure the Suite with the SDK key for the FME environment that you would like to access. In legacy Split (app.split.io) the SDK key is found on your Admin settings page, in the API keys section. Select a client-side SDK API key. This is a special type of API token with limited privileges for use in browsers or mobile clients. See API keys to learn more.

Using the Suite

Basic use

When the Suite is instantiated, it starts background tasks to update an in-memory cache with small amounts of data fetched from Harness servers. This process can take up to a few hundred milliseconds depending on the size of the data. If the Suite is asked to evaluate which treatment to show to a user for a specific feature flag while in this intermediate state, it may not have the data necessary to run the evaluation. In this case, the Suite does not fail, rather, it returns the control treatment.

To make sure the Suite is properly loaded before asking it for a treatment, block until the Suite is ready, as shown below. We set the client to listen for the SDK_READY event triggered by the Suite before asking for an evaluation.

After the SDK_READY event fires, you can use the getTreatment method to return the proper treatment based on the FEATURE_FLAG_NAME and the key variables you passed when instantiating the Suite.

You can use an if-else statement as shown below and insert the code for the different treatments that you defined in Harness FME. Remember to handle the client returning control, for example, in the final else statement.

Attribute syntax

To target based on custom attributes, the Suite's getTreatment method needs to be passed an attribute map at runtime.

In the example below, we are rolling out a feature flag to users. The provided attributes plan_type, registered_date, permissions, paying_customer, and deal_size are passed to the getTreatment call. These attributes are compared and evaluated against the attributes used in the rollout plan as defined in Harness FME to decide whether to show the on or off treatment to this account.

The getTreatment method has a number of variations that are described below. Each of these additionally has a variation that takes an attributes argument, which can defines attributes of the following types: strings, numbers, dates, booleans, and sets. The proper data type and syntax for each are:

  • Strings: Use type String.

  • Numbers: Use type java.lang.Long or java.lang.Integer.

  • Dates: Express the value in milliseconds since epoch. In Java, milliseconds since epoch is of type java.lang.Long. For example, the value for the registered_date attribute below is System.currentTimeInMillis(), which is a long.

  • Booleans: Use type java.lang.Boolean.

  • Sets: Use type java.util.Collection.

You can pass your attributes in exactly this way to the client.getTreatments method.

Binding attributes to the client

Attributes can optionally be bound to the client at any time during the Suite lifecycle. These attributes are stored in memory and used in every evaluation to avoid the need to keep the attribute set accessible through the whole app. When an evaluation is called, the attributes provided (if any) at evaluation time are combined with the ones that are already loaded into the Suite memory, with the ones provided at function execution time taking precedence. This enables those attributes to be overridden or hidden for specific evaluations.

An attribute is considered valid if it follows one of the types listed below:

  • String

  • Number

  • Boolean

  • Array

The Suite validates these before storing them and if there are invalid or missing values, possibly indicating an issue, the methods return the boolean false and do not update any value.

To use these methods, refer to the example below:

Multiple evaluations at once

In some instances, you may want to evaluate treatments for multiple feature flags at once. Use the different variations of getTreatments from the SDK client to do this.

  • getTreatments: Pass a list of the feature flag names you want treatments for.

  • getTreatmentsByFlagSet: Evaluate all flags that are part of the provided set name and are cached on the Suite instance.

  • getTreatmentsByFlagSets: Evaluate all flags that are part of the provided set names and are cached on the Suite instance.

Get treatments with configurations

To leverage dynamic configurations with your treatments, you should use the getTreatmentWithConfig method.

This method will return an object with the structure below:

As you can see from the object structure, the config is a stringified version of the configuration JSON defined in Harness FME. If there is no configuration defined for a treatment, the Suite returns null for the config parameter. This method takes the exact same set of arguments as the standard getTreatment method. See below for examples on proper usage:

If you need to get multiple evaluations at once, you can also use the getTreatmentsWithConfig methods. These methods take the exact same arguments as the getTreatments methods but return a mapping of feature flag names to TreatmentResults instead of strings. See example usage below:

Append properties to impressions

Impressions are generated by the SDK each time a getTreatment method is called. These impressions are periodically sent back to Harness servers for feature monitoring and experimentation.

You can append properties to an impression by passing an object of key-value pairs to the getTreatment method. These properties are then included in the impression sent by the SDK and can provide useful context to the impression data.

Three types of properties are supported: strings, numbers, and booleans.

Track

Tracking events is the first step to getting experimentation data into Harness FME and allows you to measure the impact of your feature flags on your users' actions and metrics. See the Events documentation for more information.

The Suite automatically collects some RUM metrics and sends them to Harness FME. Specifically, crashes, ANRs and app start time (see Default events) are automatically collected by the Suite. Learn more about these and other events in the Android RUM Agent documentation.

To track custom events, you can use the client.track() method or the suite.track() method. Both methods are demonstrated in the code examples below.

The client.track() method sends events for the identity configured on the client instance. This track method can take up to four arguments. The proper data type and syntax for each are:

  • TRAFFIC_TYPE: The traffic type of the key in the track call. The expected data type is String. You can only pass values that match the names of traffic types that you have defined in your instance of Harness FME.

  • EVENT_TYPE: The event type that this event should correspond to. The expected data type is String. Full requirements on this argument are:

    • Contains 63 characters or fewer.

    • Starts with a letter or number.

    • Contains only letters, numbers, hyphen, underscore, or period.

    • This is the regular expression we use to validate the value: [a-zA-Z0-9][-_\.a-zA-Z0-9]{0,62}

  • VALUE: (Optional) The value to be used in creating the metric. This field can be sent in as null or 0 if you intend to purely use the count function when creating a metric. The expected data type is Integer or Float.

  • PROPERTIES: (Optional) An object of key value pairs that can be used to filter your metrics. Learn more about event property capture in the Events guide. FME currently supports three types of properties: strings, numbers, and booleans.

The suite.track() method sends events for all the identities configured on all instances of the Suite clients. For those clients that have not been configured with a traffic type, this track method uses the default traffic type user. This track method can take up to three of the four arguments described above: EVENT_TYPE, VALUE, and PROPERTIES.

Tracking per identity using client.track():

Tracking for all identities using suite.track():

The client.track() methods return a boolean value of true or false to indicate whether or not the Suite was able to successfully queue the event, to be sent back to Harness servers on the next event post.

Shutdown

It is good practice to call the destroy method before your app shuts down or is destroyed, as this method gracefully shuts down the Suite by stopping all background threads, clearing caches, closing connections, and flushing the remaining unpublished impressions.

After the suite.destroy() method is called and finishes, any subsequent invocations to getTreatment or manager methods result in control or an empty list, respectively. You can also call destroy on the client instance, which will stop the specific Suite client, but will keep the Suite running.

Configuration

The Suite has a number of knobs for configuring performance. Each knob is tuned to a reasonable default. However, you can override the value while instantiating the Suite. The parameters available for configuration are shown below in separate tables for those parameters that affect feature flagging, those that affect the Suite RUM agent, and those that affect both.

Feature flagging parameters:

Configuration

Description

Default value

featuresRefreshRate

The Suite polls Harness servers for changes to feature flags at this rate (in seconds).

3600 seconds

segmentsRefreshRate

The Suite polls Harness servers for changes to segments at this rate (in seconds).

1800 seconds

impressionsRefreshRate

Controls how frequently the impressions cache expires after a write (in seconds). The treatment log captures which customer saw which treatment (on, off, etc.) and is periodically flushed back to Harness servers.

1800 seconds

telemetryRefreshRate

The Suite caches diagnostic data that it periodically sends to Harness servers. This configuration controls how frequently this data is sent back to Harness servers (in seconds).

3600 seconds (1 hour)

eventsQueueSize

When using the track method, the number of events to be kept in memory.

10000

eventFlushInterval

When using the track method, how often is the events queue flushed to Harness servers.

1800 seconds

eventsPerPush

Maximum size of the batch to push events.

2000

trafficType

When using the track method, the default traffic type to be used.

not set

connectionTimeout

HTTP client connection timeout (in ms).

10000 ms

readTimeout

HTTP socket read timeout (in ms).

10000 ms

impressionsQueueSize

Default queue size for impressions.

30K

disableLabels

Disable labels from being sent to Harness servers. Labels may contain sensitive information.

true

proxyHost

The location of the proxy using standard URI: scheme://user:password@domain:port/path. If no port is provided, the Suite defaults to port 80.

null

ready

Maximum amount of time in milliseconds to wait before notifying a timeout.

-1 (not set)

synchronizeInBackground

Activates synchronization when application host is in background.

false

synchronizeInBackgroundPeriod

Rate in minutes in which the background synchronization would check the conditions and trigger the data fetch if those are met. Minimum rate allowed is 15 minutes.

15

backgroundSyncWhenBatteryNotLow

When set to true, synchronize in background only if battery level is not low.

true

backgroundSyncWhenWifiOnly

When set to true, synchronize in background only when the available connection is wifi (unmetered). When false, background synchronization takes place as long as there is an available connection.

false

streamingEnabled

Boolean flag to enable the streaming service as default synchronization mechanism when in foreground. In the event of an issue with streaming, the Suite will fallback to the polling mechanism. If false, the Suite will poll for changes as usual without attempting to use streaming.

true

syncConfig

Optional SyncConfig instance. Use it to filter specific feature flags to be synced and evaluated by the Suite. These filters can be created with the SplitFilter::bySet static function (recommended, flag sets are available in all tiers), or SplitFilter::byName static function, and appended to this config using the SyncConfig builder. If not set or empty, all feature flags are downloaded by the Suite.

null

persistentAttributesEnabled

Enables saving attributes on persistent cache which is loaded as part of the SDK_READY_FROM_CACHE flow. All functions that mutate the stored attributes map affect the persistent cache.

false

syncEnabled

Controls the SDK continuous synchronization flags. When true, a running Suite processes rollout plan updates performed in Harness FME (default). When false, it fetches all data upon init, which ensures a consistent experience during a user session and optimizes resources when these updates are not consumed by the app.

true

impressionsMode

This configuration defines how impressions (decisioning events) are queued on the Suite. Supported modes are OPTIMIZED, NONE, and DEBUG. In OPTIMIZED mode, only unique impressions are queued and posted to Harness; this is the recommended mode for experimentation use cases. In NONE mode, no impression is tracked in Harness FME and only minimum viable data to support usage stats is, so never use this mode if you are experimenting with that instance impressions. Use NONE when you want to optimize for feature flagging only use cases and reduce impressions network and storage load. In DEBUG mode, ALL impressions are queued and sent to Harness; this is useful for validations. This mode doesn't impact the impression listener which receives all generated impressions locally.

OPTIMIZED

userConsent

User consent status used to control the tracking of events and impressions. Possible values are GRANTED, DECLINED, and UNKNOWN. See User consent for details.

GRANTED

encryptionEnabled

If set to true, the local database contents is encrypted.

false

prefix

If set, the prefix will be prepended to the database name used by the Suite.

null

certificatePinningConfiguration

If set, enables certificate pinning for the given domains. For details, see the Certificate pinning section below.

null

expirationDays

Number of days to keep cached data before it is considered expired.

10 days

clearOnInit

If set to true, clears any previously stored rollout data when the SDK initializes. Useful to force fresh data fetch on startup.

false

rolloutCacheConfiguration

Specifies how long rollout data is kept in local storage before expiring.

null

Suite RUM agent parameters:

Configuration

Description

Default value

prefix

Optional prefix to append to the eventTypeId of the events sent to Harness by the Suite RUM agent. For example, if you set the prefix to 'my-app', the event type 'error' will be sent as 'my-app.error'.

null

Shared parameters:

Configuration

Description

Default value

logLevel

Enables logging according to the level specified. Options are NONE, VERBOSE, DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, and ASSERT.

NONE

To set each of the parameters defined above, use the following syntax:

Configure cache behavior

The SDK stores rollout data locally to speed up initialization and support offline behavior. By default, the cache expires after 10 days. You can override this or force clear the cache on Suite initialization.

The minimum value for cache expiration is 1 day. Any lower value will revert to the default of 10 days. Even if you enable the option to clear the cache on initialization, the Suite will only clear it once per day to avoid excessive network usage.

You can configure cache behavior using the rolloutCacheConfiguration setting:

  • expirationDays: Number of days to keep cached data before it is considered expired. Default: 10 days.

  • clearOnInit: If set to true, clears previously stored rollout data when the SDK initializes. Default: false.

Localhost mode

For testing, a developer can put code behind feature flags on their development machine without the Suite requiring network connectivity. To achieve this, you can start the Suite in localhost mode (aka, off-the-grid mode). In this mode, the Suite neither polls or updates Harness servers. Instead, it uses an in-memory data structure to determine what treatments to show to the logged in customer for each of the feature flags. To use the Suite in localhost mode, replace the SDK Key with localhost, as shown in the example below/

The format for defining the definitions is as follows:

In the example above, we have four entries:

  • The first entry defines that for feature flag my_feature, the key key returns the treatment on and the on treatment is tied to the configuration {"desc" : "this applies only to ON treatment"}.

  • The second entry defines that the feature flag some_other_feature always returns the off treatment and no configuration.

  • The third entry defines that my_feature always returns off for all keys that don't match another entry (in this case, any key other than key).

  • The fourth entry shows an example on how to override a treatment for a set of keys.

In this mode, the FME SDK Suite loads the yaml file from a resource bundle file at the assets' project src/main/assets/splits.yaml.

Manager

Use the Split Manager to get a list of feature flags available to the SDK client. To instantiate a Manager in your code base, use the same factory that you used for your client.

The Manager then has the following methods available.

The SplitView object referenced above has the following structure.

Listener

The FME Suite sends impression data back to Harness servers periodically and as a result of evaluating feature flags. To additionally send this information to a location of your choice, define and attach an impression listener.

The Suite sends the generated impressions to the impression listener right away. Because of this, be careful while implementing handling logic to avoid blocking the thread. Generally speaking, you should create a separate thread to handle incoming impressions. Refer to the snippet below:

In regards with the data available here, refer to the Impression objects interface and information about each field below:

Name

Type

Description

key

String

Key used for targeting (matching). Also used for bucketing unless a specific bucketingKey was provided.

bucketingKey

String

Optional. Key used to control rollout assignment (bucketing) separately from the matching key.

split

String

Feature flag which is evaluated.

treatment

String

Treatment that is returned.

time

Long

Timestamp of when the impression is generated.

appliedRule

String

Targeting rule in the definition that matched resulting in the treatment being returned.

changeNumber

Long

Date and time of the last change to the targeting rule that the Suite used when it served the treatment. It is important to understand when a change made to a feature flag is picked up by the Suite and whether one of the Suite instances is not picking up changes.

attributes

Map<String, Object>

A map of attributes passed to getTreatment/getTreatments, if any.

previousTime

Long

If Suite is deduping and a matching impression is seen before on the lifetime of the instance this is its timestamp.

Flush

The flush method sends the data stored in memory (impressions and events tracked using client's track method) to the Harness FME servers and clears the successfully posted data. If a connection issue is experienced, the data is sent on the next attempt. If you want to flush all pending data when your app goes to the background, a good place to call this method is the onPause callback of your activity.

Logging

To enable logging, the logLevel setting is available in SplitClientConfig class:

Advanced use cases

This section describes advanced use cases and features provided by the Suite.

Instantiate multiple clients

FME supports the ability to create multiple clients, one for each user ID. Each Suite client is tied to one specific customer ID at a time. For example, if you need to roll out feature flags for different user IDs, you can instantiate multiple clients, one for each ID. You can then evaluate them using the corresponding client.

You can do this with the example below:

The events captured by the Suite's RUM agent are sent to Harness servers using the traffic types and keys of the created client. If no traffic type is provided, the traffic type is user by default.

NUMBER OF SUITE INSTANCES

While the Suite does not put any limitations on the number of instances that can be created, we strongly recommend keeping the number of instances down to one or two.

Subscribe to events

You can listen for four different events from the Suite.

  • SDK_READY_FROM_CACHE. This event fires once the Suite is ready to evaluate treatments using a locally cached version of your rollout plan from a previous session (which might be stale). If there is data in the cache, this event fires almost immediately, since access to the cache is fast; otherwise, it doesn't fire.

  • SDK_READY. This event fires once the Suite is ready to evaluate treatments using the most up-to-date version of your rollout plan, downloaded from Harness servers.

  • SDK_READY_TIMED_OUT. This event fires if there is no cached version of your rollout plan in disk cache, and the Suite could not download the data from Harness servers within the time specified by the ready setting of the SplitClientConfig object. This event does not indicate that the Suite initialization was interrupted. The Suite continues downloading the rollout plan and fires the SDK_READY event when finished. This delayed SDK_READY event may happen with slow connections or large rollout plans with many feature flags, segments, or dynamic configurations.

  • SDK_UPDATE. This event fires whenever your rollout plan is changed. Listen for this event to refresh your app whenever a feature flag or segment is changed in Harness FME.

To define what is executed after each event, create an extension of SplitEventTask.

Both the onPostExecution and onPostExecutionView methods are executed after the SDK event is triggered. The onPostExecution method is executed on a background thread, so we recommend it's used in cases where heavy computation is needed. The onPostExecutionView method is executed on the UI thread, so we recommend it's only used for short tasks or manipulating the UI.

The syntax to listen for each event is shown below:

Include metadata

SUPPORTED SUITE VERSIONS

Event metadata is supported in the Android Suite version 2.2.0 or later.

metadata provides additional context for events:

  • onReady / onReadyFromCache: Includes isInitialCacheLoad (true if no cached data from a previous session was available) and lastUpdateTimestamp (milliseconds since epoch when the cache was last updated).

  • onUpdate: Includes type (FLAGS_UPDATE or SEGMENTS_UPDATE) and names (list of impacted flags; empty for segment-only updates).

For example:

The Suite allows you to disable the tracking of events and impressions until user consent is explicitly granted or declined.

The userConsent configuration parameter lets you set the initial consent status of the Suite instance, and the Suite method UserConsent.setStatus(boolean) lets you grant (enable) or decline (disable) the dynamic data tracking.

There are three possible initial states:

  • 'GRANTED': the user grants consent for tracking events and impressions. The Suite sends them to Harness FME servers. This is the default value if userConsent param is not defined.

  • 'DECLINED': the user declines consent for tracking events and impressions. The Suite does not send them to Harness FME servers.

  • 'UNKNOWN': the user neither grants nor declines consent for tracking events and impressions. The Suite tracks them in its internal storage, and eventually either sends them or not if the consent status is updated to 'GRANTED' or 'DECLINED' respectively. The status can be updated at any time with the setUserConsent Suite method.

Certificate pinning

The SDK allows you to constrain the certificates that the SDK trusts, using one of the following techniques:

  1. Pin a certificate's SubjectPublicKeyInfo, by providing the public key as a base64 SHA-256 hash or a base64 SHA-1 hash.

  2. Pin a certificate's entire certificate chain (the root, all intermediate, and the leaf certificate), by providing the certificate chain as a .der file.

Each pin corresponds to a host. For subdomains, you can optionally use wildcards, where * will match one subdomain (e.g. *.example.com), and ** will match any number of subdomains (e.g **.example.com).

You can optionally configure a listener to execute on certificate validation failure for a host.

To set the SDK to require pinned certificates for specific hosts, add the CertificatePinningConfiguration object to SplitClientConfig.Builder, as shown below.

RUM agent configuration

The Suite handles the setup of its RUM agent using the same SDK key. Configurations for Logging and Identities are also shared with the Suite's RUM agent.

You can further configure the RUM agent passing a SplitSuiteConfiguration object instead of SplitClientConfiguration. To create this object, use a SplitSuiteConfigurationBuilder.

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