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Experiment Ruby SDK

Official documentation for Amplitude Experiment's server-side Ruby SDK implementation.

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This documentation is split into two sections for remote and local evaluation:

Remote evaluation

Implements fetching variants for a user via remote evaluation.

Install

Ruby version compatibility

The Ruby Server SDK works with Ruby 2.0+.

Install the Ruby Server SDK with bundler or gem directly.

gem 'amplitude-experiment'
gem install amplitude-experiment

Quick Start

  1. Initialize the experiment client
  2. Fetch variants for the user
  3. Access a flag's variant
require 'amplitude-experiment'

# (1) Initialize the experiment client
experiment = AmplitudeExperiment.initialize_remote('<DEPLOYMENT_KEY>', AmplitudeExperiment::RemoteEvaluationConfig.new)

# (2) Fetch variants for a user
user = AmplitudeExperiment::User.new(
  user_id: 'user@company.com',
  device_id: 'abcdefg',
  user_properties: {
    'premium' => true
  }
)
variants = experiment.fetch(user)

# (3) Access a flag's variant
variant = variants['YOUR-FLAG-KEY']
unless variant.nil?
    if variant.value == 'on'
        # Flag is on
    else
        # Flag is off
    end
end

Not getting the expected variant result for your flag? Make sure your flag is activated, has a deployment set, and has users allocated.

Initialize

The SDK client should be initialized in your server on startup. The deployment key argument passed into the apiKey parameter must live within the same project that you are sending analytics events to.

initialize_remote(apiKey, config = nil) : Client
Parameter Requirement Description
apiKey required The deployment key which authorizes fetch requests and determines which flags should be evaluated for the user.
config optional The client configuration used to customize SDK client behavior.

Timeout & Retry Configuration

Configure the timeout and retry options to best fit your performance requirements.

experiment = AmplitudeExperiment.initialize_remote('<DEPLOYMENT_KEY>', AmplitudeExperiment::RemoteEvaluationConfig.new)

Configuration

You can configure the SDK client on initialization.

Configuration Options
Name
Description Default Value
debug Enable additional debug logging. false
server_url The host to fetch variants from. https://api.lab.amplitude.com
fetch_timeout_millis The timeout for fetching variants in milliseconds. This timeout only applies to the initial request, not subsequent retries 10000
fetch_retries The number of retries to attempt if a request to fetch variants fails. 0
fetch_retry_backoff_min_millis The minimum (initial) backoff after a request to fetch variants fails. This delay is scaled by the fetchRetryBackoffScalar 500
fetch_retry_backoff_max_millis The maximum backoff between retries. If the scaled backoff becomes greater than the max, the max is used for all subsequent requests 10000
fetch_retry_backoff_scalar Scales the minimum backoff exponentially. 1.5
fetch_retry_timeout_millis The request timeout for retrying variant fetches. 10000

EU Data Center

If you're using Amplitude's EU data center, configure the serverUrl option on initialization to https://api.lab.eu.amplitude.com

Fetch

Fetches variants for a user and returns the results. This function remote evaluates the user for flags associated with the deployment used to initialize the SDK client.

fetch(user: AmplitudeExperiment::User) : Variants
Parameter Requirement Description
user required The user to remote fetch variants for.
user = AmplitudeExperiment::User.new(
    user_id: 'user@company.com',
    device_id: 'abcdefg',
    user_properties: {
        'premium' => true
    }
)
variants = experiment.fetch(user)

After fetching variants for a user, you may to access the variant for a specific flag.

variant = variants['YOUR-FLAG-KEY']
unless variant.nil?
  if variant.value == 'on'
    # Flag is on
  else
    # Flag is off
  end
end

Fetch async

The fetch method is synchronous. To fetch asynchronously, you can use fetch_async method

fetch_async(user: AmplitudeExperiment::User, &callback)
Parameter Requirement Description
user required The user to remote fetch variants for.
callback optional The callback to handle the variants. Callback takes two arguments: User object and returned Variants.
experiment.fetch_async(user) do |_, variants|
  variant = variants['sdk-ci-test']
  unless variant.nil?
    if variant.value == 'on'
      # Flag is on
    else
      # Flag is off
    end
  end
end

Local evaluation

Implements evaluating variants for a user via local evaluation. If you plan on using local evaluation, you should understand the tradeoffs.

Local Evaluation Mode

The local evaluation client can only evaluation flags which are set to local evaluation mode.

Install

Install the Ruby Server SDK's local evaluation.

OS, and architecture support

The local evaluation package currently only supports the following OS' and architectures (OS/ARCH):

Supported

  • darwin/amd64
  • darwin/arm64
  • linux/amd64
  • linux/arm64

Alpine linux is not supported at this time.

If you need another OS/Arch supported, please submit an issue on github or email experiment@amplitude.com.

Install the Ruby Server SDK with bundler or gem directly.

Ruby version compatibility

The Ruby Server SDK works with Ruby 2.0+.

gem 'amplitude-experiment'
gem install amplitude-experiment

Quick Start

  1. Initialize the experiment client
  2. Start the local evaluation client
  3. Evaluate a user
require 'amplitude-experiment'

# (1) Initialize the local evaluation client with a server deployment key.
experiment = AmplitudeExperiment.initialize_local('<DEPLOYMENT_KEY>', AmplitudeExperiment::LocalEvaluationConfig.new)

# (2) Start the local evaluation
experiment.start

# (3) Evaluate a user
user = AmplitudeExperiment::User.new(
  user_id: 'user@company.com',
  device_id: 'abcdefg',
  user_properties: {
    'premium' => true
  }
)
variants = expriment.evaluate(user)
variant = variants['YOUR-FLAG-KEY']
unless variant.nil?
    if variant.value == 'on'
        # Flag is on
    else
        # Flag is off
    end
end

Not getting the expected variant result for your flag? Make sure your flag is activated, has a deployment set, and has users allocated.

Initialize

Initializes a local evaluation client.

Server Deployment Key

You must initialize the local evaluation client with a server deployment key to get access to local evaluation flag configs.

AmplitudeExperiment.initialize_local(api_key)
Parameter Requirement Description
apiKey required The server deployment key which authorizes fetch requests and determines which flags should be evaluated for the user.
config optional The client configuration used to customize SDK client behavior.

Flag Polling Interval

Use the flag_config_polling_interval_millis configuration to determine the time flag configs take to update once modified (default 30s).

Configuration

You can configure the SDK client on initialization.

Configuration Options
Name
Description Default Value
server_url The host to fetch flag configurations from. https://api.lab.amplitude.com
bootstrap Bootstrap the client with a map of flag key to flag configuration {}
flag_config_polling_interval_millis The interval to poll for updated flag configs after calling start 30000
debug Set to true to enable debug logging. false

EU Data Center

If you're using Amplitude's EU data center, configure the serverUrl option on initialization to https://api.lab.eu.amplitude.com

Start

Start the local evaluation client, pre-fetching local evaluation mode flag configs for evaluation and starting the flag config poller at the configured interval.

start

You should await the result of start to ensure that flag configs are ready to be used before calling evaluate()

experiment.start

Evaluate

Executes the evaluation logic using the flags pre-fetched on start(). You must give evaluate a user object argument, and can you can optionally pass it an array of flag keys if only a specific subset of required flag variants are required.

evaluate(user, flag_keys)
Parameter Requirement Description
user required The user to evaluate.
flag_keys optional Specific flags or experiments to evaluate. If nil, or empty, all flags and experiments are evaluated.
# The user to evaluate
user = AmplitudeExperiment::User.new(user_id: 'test-user')
# Evaluate all flag variants
all_variants = experiment.evaluate(user)
# Evaluate a specific subset of flag variants
specific_variants = experiment.evaluate(user, ["<FLAG_KEY_1>", "<FLAG_KEY_2>"])
# Access a variant
variant = all_variants["<FLAG_KEY>"]
if variant.value == 'on':
    # Flag is on
else:
    # Flag is off
end

Access Amplitude cookies

If you're using the Amplitude Analytics SDK on the client-side, the Ruby server SDK provides an AmplitudeCookie class with convenience functions for parsing and interacting with the Amplitude identity cookie. This is useful for ensuring that the Device ID on the server matches the Device ID set on the client, especially if the client hasn't yet generated a Device ID.

require 'amplitude-experiment'

# grab amp device id if present
amp_cookie_name = AmplitudeExperiment::AmplitudeCookie.cookie_name('amplitude-api-key')
device_id = nil
unless cookies[amp_cookie_name].nil?
  device_id = AmplitudeExperiment::AmplitudeCookie.parse(cookies[amp_cookie_name]).device_id
end

if device_id.nil?
  # deviceId doesn't exist, set the Amplitude Cookie
  device_id = SecureRandom.uuid
  amp_cookie_value = AmplitudeExperiment::AmplitudeCookie.generate(device_id)
  cookies[amp_cookie_name] = {
    value: amp_cookie_value,
    domain: '.yourdomain.com', # this should be the same domain used by the Amplitude JS SDK
    httponly: false,
    secure: false
  }
end

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