Deleted feature flag accidentally react

Short summary

A dormant feature flag deleted during cleanup didn't remove the underlying feature—it fell back to true, reactivating code that collided with an active feature and broke production. The post explains why flag deletion is a deployment, not housekeeping: it shifts control to undocumented defaults, and cross-system dependencies hide in code memory. Three lessons: audit every fallback before deleting, treat flag removal like a real change, and make dependencies explicit.

• •Deleting a feature flag doesn't remove the feature—it falls back to the code's default behavior
• •Cross-system flag dependencies can hide in code and break when one flag is removed
• •Flag cleanup must be treated like a deployment, with full audit and observability

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