PRD & Ticket Sample — Cohort-Based Feature Access

Product brief: cohort-based feature access for Nest platform

1.1Problem statement

The problem

Currently, when a new feature is deployed on the Nest platform, it is released to all users simultaneously. Student Success Coaches need a way to pilot new features (e.g., "Admissions Milestone Tracker") with a select cohort of 50 students before a full production rollout.

1.2Scope & requirements

＋In-scope

An admin-only interface to create student cohorts.
Feature toggle configuration based on cohort ID.
Graceful fallback — if a student is not in the pilot cohort, they see the standard dashboard.

−Out-of-scope

Self-enrollment of students into pilot cohorts.

Engineering ticket sample (Jira / Linear format)

NEST-402

Feature High priority To do

Implement cohort-based feature toggle for pilot releases

User story As an internal admin / coach, I want to assign a specific cohort of students to a feature flag so that they can test new functionalities before a public release.

2.1Technical & expected behavior

Database / schema
- A student entity can belong to one or more cohort_ids.
- Feature flags must check the user's cohort entitlement API before rendering experimental UI blocks.
UI/UX (admin panel)
- Under Admin Settings > Features, add a dropdown to select which cohort (by cohort ID) has the feature flag enabled.
Fallback logic
- If cohort_id does not match the active pilot list, return a standard response and render default production components.

2.2Acceptance criteria

0 / 4 complete

Admin can successfully assign a feature flag to a "Pilot Cohort A".

Users inside "Pilot Cohort A" can view and interact with the new dashboard module.

Users not in "Pilot Cohort A" do not see the module and experience zero performance degradation.

API handles missing or null cohort IDs gracefully without breaking the frontend layout.

2.3Tools & deployment

QA checklist

Verify local and staging environments with different user roles (Coach, Student, Admin).

Rollout

10% canary rollout via feature flag toggles.