Statsig's normal (remote evaluation) SDKs are recommended for most client applications. Understand the use case and privacy risks by reading the On-Device Eval SDK overview. On-device evaluation SDKs are for Enterprise & Pro Tier only.
These SDKs use a different paradigm than their precomputed counterparts (JS, Android, iOS) and behave more like Server SDKs. Rather than requiring a user up front, you can check gates/configs/experiments for any set of user properties, because the SDK downloads a complete representation of your project and evaluates checks in real time.
Pros
No need for a network request when changing user properties - just check the gate/config/experiment locally
Can bring your own CDN or synchronously initialize with a preloaded project definition
Lower latency to download configs cached at the edge, rather than evaluated for a given user (which can't be cached as much)
Cons
Entire project definition is available client side: the names and configurations of all experiments and feature flags accessible by your client key are exposed. Refer to client key with server permission best practices.
Payload size is strictly larger than what is required for the traditional SDKs
Evaluation performance is slightly slower - rather than looking up the value, the SDK must actually evaluate targeting conditions and an allocation decision
Does not support ID list segments with > 1000 IDs
Does not support IP or User Agent based checks (Browser Version/Name, OS Version/Name, IP, Country)
Set Up the SDK
Install the SDK
Install the Statsig SDK using npm, yarn, or jsdelivr:
Initialize the SDK with a client SDK key from the "API Keys" tab on the Statsig console. These keys are safe to embed in a client application.Along with the key, pass in a User Object with the attributes you'd like to target later in a gate or experiment.
For On-Device Evaluation, you'll need to add the "Allow Download Config Specs" scope. Client keys, by default, can't download the project definition for on-device evaluation.
While client keys are safe to include, Server and Console keys should always be kept private.
typescript
import { StatsigOnDeviceEvalClient } from '@statsig/js-on-device-eval-client';const myStatsigClient = new StatsigOnDeviceEvalClient( YOUR_CLIENT_KEY, { environment: {tier: 'development'} });// initialize and wait for the latest valuesawait myStatsigClient.initializeAsync();
In advanced use cases, you may want to Prefetch or Bootstrap (Provide) values for initialization. Go to Using EvaluationsDataAdapter to learn how to do this.
Working with the SDK
Setup a StatsigUser
To interact with the SDK, create a StatsigUser object. The full definition of this object is here.
Now that your SDK is initialized, check a Feature Gate. Feature Gates create logic branches in code that can be rolled out to different users from the Statsig Console. Gates are always CLOSED or OFF (think return false;) by default.
typescript
if (myStatsigClient.checkGate("new_homepage_design", myUser)) { // Gate is on, show new home page} else { // Gate is off, show old home page}
Reading a Dynamic Config
Feature Gates work well for simple on/off switches with optional advanced user targeting. To send different values (strings, numbers, and similar types) to your clients based on specific user attributes such as country, use Dynamic Configs. The API is similar to Feature Gates but returns a full JSON object you can configure on the server and fetch typed parameters from. For example:
After you set up a Feature Gate or an Experiment, you can track custom events to measure how your new features or experiment groups affect those events. Call the Log Event API for the event, and optionally provide a value and/or a metadata object to log together with the event:
typescript
import type { StatsigEvent } from '@statsig/client-core';// log a simple eventmyStatsigClient.logEvent('my_simple_event');// or, include more information by using a StatsigEvent objectconst myEvent: StatsigEvent = { eventName: 'add_to_cart', value: 'SKU_12345', metadata: { price: '9.99', item_name: 'diet_coke_48_pack', },};myStatsigClient.logEvent(myEvent);
Flushing Logged Events
flush() sends queued events immediately. Use shutdown() when your app is exiting.
typescript
await myStatsigClient.flush();
Code Examples
Working sample apps are available in the repository:
Provide a StatsigUser object to check or get your configurations. Pass as much information as possible to take advantage of advanced gate and config conditions.
The userID field is usually required to provide a consistent experience for a given user. (Refer to logged-out experiments to understand how to correctly run experiments for logged-out users.)
Besides userID, the email, ip, userAgent, country, locale, and appVersion fields are available as top-level fields on StatsigUser. You can also pass any key-value pairs in an object/dictionary to the custom field to create targeting based on them.
For the JavaScript On-Device Evaluation SDK, you pass the StatsigUser object into each evaluation method (checkGate, getConfig, etc.) rather than during initialization.
Unlike precomputed evaluation SDKs, the on-device evaluation SDK doesn't have an updateUser method since it evaluates gates/configs/experiments in real-time for any user object you pass in.
Client Event Emitter
You can subscribe to StatsigClientEvents (not to be confused with StatsigEvent). These events occur at various stages while using the Statsig client. Subscribe to specific events by specifying the StatsigClientEvent name, or subscribe to all events using the wildcard token '*'.
typescript
import type { AnyStatsigClientEvent, StatsigClientEvent, StatsigClientEventCallback,} from '@statsig/client-core';const onAnyClientEvent = (event: AnyStatsigClientEvent) => { console.log("Any Client Event", event);};const onLogsFlushed = (event: StatsigClientEvent<'logs_flushed'>) => { console.log("Logs", event.events);};// subscribe to an individual StatsigClientEventmyStatsigClient.on('logs_flushed', onLogsFlushed);// or, subscribe to all StatsigClientEventsmyStatsigClient.on('*', onAnyClientEvent);// then later, unsubscribe from the eventsmyStatsigClient.off('logs_flushed', onLogsFlushed);myStatsigClient.off('*', onAnyClientEvent);
The full list of events and descriptions can be found here.
Statsig Options
Configure the SDK's behavior by passing a StatsigOptions object during initialization.
apistring
The API to use for all SDK network requests. You don't need to override this unless you have another API that implements the Statsig API endpoints.
logEventUrlstring
The URL used to flush queued events via a POST request. Takes precedence over StatsigOptions.api.
logEventBeaconUrlstring
The URL used to flush queued events via window.navigator.sendBeacon (web only). Takes precedence over StatsigOptions.api.
downloadConfigSpecsUrlstring
The URL used to fetch your latest Statsig specifications. Takes precedence over StatsigOptions.api.
environmentStatsigEnvironment
An object you can use to set environment variables that apply to all of your users in the same session.
overrideStableIDstring
Overrides the auto-generated stableID that is set for the device.
logLevelLogLevel
How much information is allowed to be printed to the console.
dataAdapterSpecsDataAdapter
Implementing this type allows customization of the initialization. See Using SpecsDataAdapter to learn more.
networkTimeoutMsnumber
The maximum amount of time (in milliseconds) that any network request can take before timing out.
loggingBufferMaxSizenumber
The maximum number of events to batch before flushing logs to Statsig.
loggingIntervalMsnumber
How often (in milliseconds) to flush logs to Statsig.
overrideAdapterOverrideAdapter
An implementor of OverrideAdapter, used to alter evaluations before they are returned to the caller of a check API (checkGate/getExperiment etc).
Manual Exposures
Manual logging is error-prone and can often introduce issues like uneven exposures, which compromise experiment results.
You can query your gates/experiments without triggering an exposure and manually log the exposures later.
Gates
typescript
// Check gate with exposure disabledconst result = myStatsigClient.checkGate('a_gate_name', { user, disableExposureLog: true });// Manually log the exposuremyStatsigClient.checkGate('a_gate_name', { user });
Configs
typescript
// Get config with exposure disabledconst config = myStatsigClient.getConfig('a_dynamic_config_name', { user, disableExposureLog: true });// Manually log the exposuremyStatsigClient.getConfig('a_dynamic_config_name', { user });
Experiments
typescript
// Get experiment with exposure disabledconst experiment = myStatsigClient.getExperiment('an_experiment_name', { user, disableExposureLog: true });// Manually log the exposuremyStatsigClient.getExperiment('an_experiment_name', { user });
Layers
typescript
// Get layer with exposure disabledconst layer = myStatsigClient.getLayer('a_layer_name', { user, disableExposureLog: true });const paramValue = layer.get('a_param_name', 'fallback_value');// Manually log the exposureconst layer = myStatsigClient.getLayer('a_layer_name', { user });const paramValue = layer.get('a_param_name', 'fallback_value');
Lifecycle & Advanced Usage
Shutting Statsig Down
To save users' data and battery usage and prevent logged events from being dropped, the SDK keeps event logs in client cache and flushes them periodically. Because of this, some events may not have been sent when your app shuts down.
To ensure all logged events are flushed or saved locally, call shutdown when your app is closing.
typescript
await myStatsigClient.shutdown();
Data Adapter
The EvaluationsDataAdapter type outlines how the StatsigClient fetches and caches data during initialize and update operations. By default, the StatsigClient uses StatsigEvaluationsDataAdapter, a Statsig-provided implementor of the EvaluationsDataAdapter type. StatsigEvaluationsDataAdapter provides ways to fetch data synchronously from Local Storage and asynchronously from Statsig's servers. Go to Using EvaluationsDataAdapter to learn more and see example usage.