Ruby

View the full source code at https://github.com/growthbook/growthbook-ruby.

Installation

Install the gem

gem install growthbook

Quick start

require 'growthbook'
require 'uri'
require 'net/http'
require 'json'

# Fetch features from GrowthBook API (or a Redis cache, etc.)
uri = URI('https://cdn.growthbook.io/api/features/MY_API_KEY')
res = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
features = res.is_a?(Net::HTTPSuccess) ? JSON.parse(res.body)['features'] : nil

# Create a context for the current user/request
gb = Growthbook::Context.new(
  features: features,
  # User attributes for targeting / variation assignment
  attributes: {
    id: '123',
    country: 'US'
  }
)

# Use a boolean feature flag
if gb.on? :my_feature_key
  puts 'My feature is on!'
end

# Get the value of a multivariate feature with a fallback
btn_color = gb.feature_value(:signup_btn_color, 'pink')

Track experiment impressions

When a feature's value is determined by an experiment (A/B test), you typically want to track that assignment event for later analysis.

There are two ways to do this. First is by accessing all impressions at the end of a request:

gb.impressions.each do |key, result|
  puts "Assigned variation #{result.variation_id} in experiment #{key}"
end

Second is by using a listener to get alerted in realtime as users are put into experiments:

class MyImpressionListener
  def on_experiment_viewed(experiment, result)
    puts "Assigned variation #{result.variation_id} in experiment #{experiment.key}"
  end
end

gb.listener = MyImpressionListener.new

Using with Rails

The recommended way to use GrowthBook with a Rails app is as follows:

1. Fetch the features from the GrowthBook API (or a cache) once at server startup
2. At the start of each request, create a new Context object
3. Use the Context object to evaluate features and run experiments during the request
4. At the end of a request, track experiment impressions (if any) and destroy the Context instance
5. (optional) Periodically refresh the list of features from the GrowthBook API in the background

Dev and QA helpers

For dev/QA it's often useful to force specific feature values.

# These take precedence over everything else when determining a feature's value
gb.forced_features = {
  my_feature: true,
  other_feature: "new value"
}

# Will always be true
gb.is_on?(:my_feature)

# Will always be "new value"
gb.feature_value(:other_feature)

For more predictability during QA, you can also globally disable all random assignment in experiments from running:

gb.enabled = false

Inline experiments

It's also possible to directly run an experiment directly in code without going through a feature flag.

# Simple 50/50 experiment
result = gb.run(Growthbook::InlineExperiment.new(
  key: "my-experiment-key",
  variations: ["red", "green"]
))

# Whether or not the user was included in the experiment (either true or false)
puts(result.in_experiment ? 'included' : 'excluded')

# The value of the assigned variation (either "red" or "green")
puts(result.value)

# The variation index (either 0 or 1)
puts(result.variation_id)

There are lots of additional options when running inline experiments:

gb.run(Growthbook::InlineExperiment.new(
  key: "my-experiment-key",
  variations: ["red", "green"],
  # Filter by context attributes
  condition: {
    country: {
      "$in": ["US", "CA"]
    }
  },
  # Adjust variation weights from the default 50/50 split
  weights: [0.8, 0.2],
  # Run for a subset of traffic (0 to 1, default = 1)
  coverage: 0.5,
  # Use a different context attribute for assigning a variation (default = "id")
  hash_attribute: "device_id",
  # Use a namespace to run mutually exclusive experiments
  namespace: ["pricing-page", 0, 0.25]
))