Setting the file. One moment.
Skill 26 · Launchdarkly Experiment Guide
Subchapter 26.2
references/discovery.mdMarkdown3 KBView on GitHub
The goal of Step 1–2 is a fast, accurate read of what this app is and what the team has been building, not a full audit. Spend a handful of tool calls, then confirm with the user.
Read these first — they give the most signal per byte:
| File | What it tells you |
|---|---|
README*, docs/ index | The product in the team’s own words. |
package.json / pyproject.toml / go.mod / Gemfile / pom.xml / *.csproj | Name, description, and the dependency list (framework, payment, auth, analytics libs). |
| Top-level dirs | app/, pages/, routes/, controllers/, cmd/, services/ → the major surfaces. |
| Entrypoint | src/index.*, main.*, app.*, server.* → app type (web/API/CLI/mobile). |
Framework → product-type hints:
next, react, vue, svelte, @angular/core → web frontend / full-stack app.express, fastify, nestjs, flask, django, fastapi, gin, rails → backend/API.react-native, expo, flutter → mobile.stripe, braintree, shopify → commerce / revenue surface (strong experiment target).segment, amplitude, posthog, mixpanel, launchdarkly → analytics already present (reusable events).Name the major user-facing surfaces you can see — checkout, onboarding/signup, search, feed, pricing, settings. These are where experiments live.
Recent work is the best experiment candidate — the team already cares, and the code is fresh.
git log --oneline -n 30 — scan commit subjects for feature words (“add”,
“new”, “redesign”, “revamp”, “v2”, feature names).git log --since="8 weeks ago" --name-only --pretty=format:"%s" — which files
changed for recent features; cluster by directory to spot the feature area.variation(, boolVariation,
useFlags, ldClient) — a recently-added flag with no experiment is an ideal
candidate.Grep the manifest/imports to find which SDK the code uses:
launchdarkly-node-server-sdk, @launchdarkly/node-server-sdk → Node serverlaunchdarkly-js-client-sdk, launchdarkly-react-client-sdk → browser/Reactlaunchdarkly-python-server-sdk → Pythonlaunchdarkly-go-server-sdk / gopkg.in/launchdarkly/... → GoEnd discovery with one or two sentences and a yes/no:
“This looks like a Next.js e-commerce storefront. Recent commits are about a redesigned checkout and a recommendation widget, and you’re already using the LaunchDarkly React SDK. Want to experiment on one of those?”
A wrong guess here is cheap to fix now and expensive to fix after you’ve drafted the wrong experiment.