fix(application-generic): improve LaunchDarkly client initialization and error handling

[merrcury]

What changed

The LaunchDarkly feature flags service was refactored to improve error resilience and initialization handling. Instead of throwing errors when the LaunchDarkly client fails to initialize, the service now logs the error and gracefully degrades by using default flag values. The initialization status is tracked via an isEnabled flag that starts as false and is only set to true after successful initialization, with a configurable 10-second timeout.

Affected areas

application-generic: Updated the LaunchDarkly feature flags service to handle initialization failures gracefully, logging errors without throwing and allowing the system to fall back to default values when the service is unavailable.

Key technical decisions

• Changed error handling strategy from throwing exceptions to logging errors and gracefully degrading — when LaunchDarkly fails to initialize, the service continues operation and returns default values for all flag checks instead of crashing.
• Introduced INITIALIZATION_TIMEOUT_SECONDS constant (10 seconds) to replace hard-coded timeout value, making the initialization timeout configurable.
• Added early exit in getFlag() to immediately return default values when isEnabled is false, avoiding unnecessary client calls.

Testing

No new tests were mentioned in the PR. Testing should verify that the service gracefully handles missing or invalid SDK keys, that initialization failures are logged appropriately, and that flag checks return default values when the service is disabled.

Screenshots

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Related enterprise PR

Special notes for your reviewer

[netlify]

✅ Deploy Preview for dashboard-v2-novu-staging canceled.

Name	Link
🔨 Latest commit	5f8eab7
🔍 Latest deploy log	https://app.netlify.com/projects/dashboard-v2-novu-staging/deploys/69bba68df19cd6000844e7d4

[github-actions]

Hey there and thank you for opening this pull request! 👋

We require pull request titles to follow specific formatting rules and it looks like your proposed title needs to be adjusted.

Your PR title is: fix(application-generic): improve LaunchDarkly client initialization and error handling

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[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Modified the LaunchDarkly feature flags service to improve initialization error handling and resilience. Added try/catch exception handling during SDK initialization, set isEnabled to false by default, and implemented short-circuit logic in getFlag() to return default values when the service is disabled.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
LaunchDarkly Service Initialization libs/application-generic/src/services/feature-flags/launch-darkly.service.ts	Added logging context and timeout constants; changed isEnabled to initialize as false; wrapped initialization in try/catch to gracefully handle missing SDK key and initialization failures without throwing; updated getFlag() to short-circuit when service is disabled.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The pull request title follows the Conventional Commits format with a valid type (fix), valid scope (application-generic), and a clear, descriptive message that accurately reflects the main changes in the codebase.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.

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📝 Coding Plan

• Generate coding plan for human review comments

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[merrcury]

Checking for SDK Key is dead code. Already handled here ->

novu/libs/application-generic/src/services/feature-flags/feature-flags.service.ts

Lines 13 to 16 in 5f8eab7

	public async initialize(): Promise<void> {
	const Service = process.env.LAUNCH_DARKLY_SDK_KEY ? LaunchDarklyFeatureFlagsService : ProcessEnvFeatureFlagsService;
	this.service = new Service();

[merrcury]

LaunchDarkly timeout is in seconds. We were waiting 2.7 hours. Now SDK will retry in 10 seconds.