Shutting down
Read time: 5 minutes
Last edited: May 30, 2024
Overview
This topic explains how to safely shut down different LaunchDarkly SDKs. This feature is available for client-side, server-side, and edge SDKs.
A context is a generalized way of referring to the people, services, machines, or other resources that encounter feature flags in your product. Contexts replace another data object in LaunchDarkly: "users." To learn more, read Contexts.
Creating contexts and evaluating flags based on them is supported in the latest major versions of most of our SDKs. For these SDKs, the code samples on this page include the two most recent versions.
Shut down the LaunchDarkly client
LaunchDarkly SDKs provide language-specific methods to shut down their instances safely.
In most applications, you do not have to manually shut down an SDK. LaunchDarkly SDKs automatically flush pending analytics events to LaunchDarkly at regular intervals.
However, when your application is about to terminate, you should shut down the LaunchDarkly client. For most SDKs, this ensures that the client releases any resources it is using, and that it delivers any pending analytics to LaunchDarkly. If your application terminates without this shutdown step, flag evaluations and contexts or users may not appear on the Contexts list, because they are derived from analytics events. To learn more, read Analytics events.
Do not attempt to evaluate flags or otherwise use the LaunchDarkly client after it has shut down, as doing so may result in undefined behavior. Shut down the client at a point in your application's lifecycle where the client is no longer needed.
Details about each SDK's configuration are available in the SDK-specific sections below.
Client-side SDKs
This feature is available in the following client-side SDKs:
- .NET (client-side)
- Android
- C++ (client-side)
- Electron
- Flutter
- iOS
- JavaScript
- Node.js (client-side)
- React Native
.NET (client-side)
Expand .NET (client-side) code sample
To shut down:
Android
Expand Android code sample
To shut down:
C++ (client-side)
Expand C++ (client-side) code sample
In the C++ SDK v3.0, the client will be automatically closed.
If you are using the C binding, you must specifically close the client. The operation blocks until all resources are free.
To shut down:
Electron
Expand Electron code sample
To shut down:
Flutter
Expand Flutter code sample
iOS
Expand iOS code sample
To shut down:
JavaScript
Expand JavaScript code sample
To shut down:
Node.js (client-side)
Expand Node.js (client-side) code sample
To shut down:
React Native
Expand React Native code sample
Calling close
flushes all queued events and shuts all open network connections.
To shut down:
To learn more, read close
.
Server-side SDKs
This feature is available in the following server-side SDKs:
.NET (server-side)
Expand .NET (server-side) code sample
C++ (server-side)
Expand C++ (server-side) code sample
In the C++ SDK v3.0, the SDK will be automatically closed.
If you are using the C binding, you must specifically close the client. The operation blocks until all resources are free.
To shut down:
Erlang
Expand Erlang code sample
stop_instance()
, stop_instance(Tag)
, and stop_all_instances()
all safely shut down client instances and release the resources associated with them.
To shut down:
Go
Expand Go code sample
Haskell
Expand Haskell code sample
To shut down:
Java
Expand Java code sample
Close
safely shuts down the client instance and releases all resources associated with the client.
To shut down:
Node.js (server-side)
Expand Node.js (server-side) code sample
Unlike other LaunchDarkly SDKs, the Node.js (server-side) SDK does not automatically send pending analytics events to LaunchDarkly when it shuts down. To send analytics events, you first need to call flush.
To shut down:
Python
Expand Python code sample
To shut down:
Ruby
Expand Ruby code sample
Shutting down frees the resources the worker threads were using and provides an explicit signal for the Ruby SDK to send the remaining event data back to LaunchDarkly.
To shut down:
Rust
Expand Rust code sample
To shut down:
Edge SDKs
This feature is available in the following edge SDKs:
Cloudflare
Expand Cloudflare code sample
close
safely shuts down the client instance:
Vercel
Expand Vercel code sample
close
safely shuts down the client instance: