pivot

pivot is a simple feature multi-variant and A/B testing framework for node and component.

It is designed to have a pluggable backend and provide a common interface to each testing strategy.

Installing

node

npm install --save pivot

component

component install CamShaft/pivot

Lookup Strategies

TODO

Assignment Strategies

TODO

Guide

Start by initializing pivot

/** * Module dependencies */varpivot=require("pivot");varexperiments=pivot();

You'll need to tell it about the following methods:

lookup

This method looks up the variant settings in the backend. It is called any time pivot encounters a new feature.

experiments.lookup(function(name,variants,done){/** * We can do a few things here: * * * Lookup our feature settings locally * * If we dont have it, notify an admin control panel page * * Log outdated features; either ones that should be integrated or ones that should be removed */varsettings=[];// can come from anywhere: database, REST api, local json file, etcdone(null,settings);});

assign

This method takes the settings from the last call and assigns them to a user.

experiments.assign(function(name,settings,user,done){/** * If the variant is a group, we can inspect the `user` object to check where they fall * If the variant is a weight, we can implement our own random assignment algorithm * * The callback expects the name of the variant chosen for the given user */// For this example we're just going to assign the first variant to everyonedone(null,settings[0]);});

If you plan on using it paired with express/connect, you can also define the following. Otherwise, pivot will serialize/deserialize using the pivot cookie and req.user.

serialize

experiments.serialize(function(features,req,res,next){// Save the features for the usernext();});

deserialize

experiments.deserialize(function(req,res,next){// Retrieve the features for the requestvarfeatures={};// can come from anywhere i.e. cookies, session, databasenext(null,features);});

findUser

experiments.findUser(function(req,res,next){// Give the user for the request to pivotnext(null,req.user);});

feature

Once you have told pivot how to do things you can start adding features into the system:

// Variants, be default, are [false, true]experiments.feature("my-cool-test");// You can also add multi-variantexperiments.feature("my-other-test",["blue","red","green"]);

variant

Now you can ask pivot to assign a variant to a user:

varuser={};// pull from your user infoexperiments.variant("my-cool-test",user,function(err,variant){// do something based on the value of variant})

variant is either true or false depending on how we implemented the assign method.

handle

If you are using express/connect pivot comes with some batteries included:

/** * Module dependencies */varexpress=require("express"),pivot=require("pivot");/** * Create our server and experiments */varapp=module.exports=express(),experiments=pivot();/** * Add our experiment setup to express */app.use(experiments);/** * Configure pivot here with the required methods */
...
experiments.feature("landing-page",["minimal","fancy"]);app.get("/",function(req,res,next){varview=res.locals.features["landing-page"];// either "minimal" or "fancy"res.render(view);});

res.locals.features is now populated with all of the enabled features for the user.

Testing

npminstallnpmtest