When new features are added to Health Connect, users may not always update their
version of Health Connect. The Feature Availability API is a way to check if a
feature in Health Connect is available on your user's device and decide what
action to take.

## Get started

The Feature Availability API shares the same dependency as the Health Connect
SDK. To get started, verify that at least version `1.1.0-alpha08` is in your
`build.gradle` file:  

    dependencies {
      implementation("androidx.health.connect:connect-client:1.1.0-alpha08")
    }

## Perform the check

The main function to check for feature availability is `getFeatureStatus()`.
This returns integer constants `FEATURE_STATUS_AVAILABLE` or
`FEATURE_STATUS_UNAVAILABLE`:  

    if (healthConnectClient
         .features
         .getFeatureStatus(
           HealthConnectFeatures.FEATURE_READ_HEALTH_DATA_IN_BACKGROUND
         ) == HealthConnectFeatures.FEATURE_STATUS_AVAILABLE) {

      // Feature is available
      ...
    } else {
      // Feature is not available
      ...
    }

For a list of all available feature flags, see the [`HealthConnectFeatures`](https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/health/connect/client/HealthConnectFeatures)
reference page.

## Handle lack of feature availability

If a feature isn't available on a user's device, an update may enable it. You
may consider directing the user to update Health Connect if they don't have
the latest supported version on their device. However, users using the APK
(on Android 13 and lower) can't use the system module features that are only
available on devices running Android 14 or higher.