PostHog — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the posthog-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:
- Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to
$HOME/.local/binon macOS/Linux and%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\binon Windows:npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install posthog --cli-only - Verify:
posthog-pp-cli --version - Ensure the reported install directory is on
$PATHfor the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.
If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.6 or newer):
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/developer-tools/posthog/cmd/posthog-pp-cli@latest
If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.
When to Use This CLI
Use posthog-pp-cli when an agent task requires querying, diffing, or combining PostHog data across more than one resource type — flag state vs error events, LLM costs vs variant performance, experiment exposure vs significance. It is faster than the web UI for bulk reads and produces structured JSON that agents can consume directly without parsing HTML.
Unique Capabilities
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Flag safety
flags blast-radius— Find every insight, dashboard, experiment, and survey that references a flag before you archive or rename it.Use before archiving or renaming a flag to prevent breaking dashboards and experiments silently.
posthog-pp-cli flags blast-radius --key my-checkout-v2 --jsonflags rollout-health— Go/no-go confidence for a flag ramp — error rate and key metric movement correlated with flag exposure.Use before ramping a flag to 100% to catch regressions that aren't visible in overall metrics.
posthog-pp-cli flags rollout-health --key new-checkout --window 24h --agentflags stale— List flags that haven't been evaluated in N days — cleanup candidates before they accumulate.Use in quarterly flag cleanup sprints to identify dead code paths safely.
posthog-pp-cli flags stale --days 30 --json
LLM observability
llm cost-attribution— Break down LLM spend by feature flag variant — see whether the expensive model variant pays for itself.Use when evaluating whether to promote a more expensive LLM variant based on actual cost-per-conversion.
posthog-pp-cli llm cost-attribution --flag model-tier --agent
Local state that compounds
persons at-risk— Surface which users in a cohort are going quiet and recently hit errors — before they churn.Use in weekly retention reviews to prioritize proactive outreach before churn events.
posthog-pp-cli persons at-risk --cohort paying-users --silent-days 14 --jsonevents property-drift— Catch tracking regressions — properties that silently disappeared from an event between two time windows.Use after a deploy to catch silent schema changes that corrupt ongoing experiments and dashboards.
posthog-pp-cli events property-drift checkout_completed --agentexperiments pre-check— Know today whether an experiment will reach significance this sprint, or needs traffic adjustment now.Use at the start of each sprint to surface experiments that need traffic changes before they run out of time.
posthog-pp-cli experiments pre-check --agentdashboard health— Find broken dashboards before a stakeholder meeting does — stale data, deleted cohorts, archived flags.Use before weekly business reviews to catch broken insight tiles that would embarrass the data team.
posthog-pp-cli dashboard health --stale-days 7 --agent
Command Reference
projects — Manage projects
public-hog-function-templates — Manage public hog function templates
posthog-pp-cli public-hog-function-templates— List
user-home-settings — Manage user home settings
posthog-pp-cli user-home-settings partial-update— Update the authenticated user's pinned sidebar tabs and/or homepage for the current team. Pass@meas the UUID....posthog-pp-cli user-home-settings retrieve— Get the authenticated user's pinned sidebar tabs and configured homepage for the current team. Pass@meas the UUID.
users — Manage users
posthog-pp-cli users cancel-email-change-request-partial-update— Cancel email change request partial updateposthog-pp-cli users destroy— Destroyposthog-pp-cli users list— Listposthog-pp-cli users partial-update— Update one or more of the authenticated user's profile fields or settings.posthog-pp-cli users request-email-verification-create— Request email verification createposthog-pp-cli users retrieve— Retrieve a user's profile and settings. Pass@meas the UUID to fetch the authenticated user; non-staff callers...posthog-pp-cli users update— Replace the authenticated user's profile and settings. Pass@meas the UUID to update the authenticated user....posthog-pp-cli users verify-email-create— Verify email create
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
posthog-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"
which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match — fall back to --help or use a narrower query.
Recipes
Find flags safe to archive
posthog-pp-cli flags stale --days 60 --json | jq '.[].key'
List flag keys with no evaluation events in 60 days — safe cleanup candidates
Pre-ramp safety check
posthog-pp-cli flags rollout-health --key new-checkout --window 48h --agent --select flag_key,error_rate_delta,metric_delta
Check error rate and purchase metric delta for flag-exposed users before ramping to 100%
Weekly experiment briefing
posthog-pp-cli experiments pre-check --json | jq '.[] | {key, winner, significance, days_remaining}'
Cross-experiment pre-check summary for Monday standup — surface experiments needing traffic adjustment
LLM cost by flag variant
posthog-pp-cli llm cost-attribution --flag model-tier --days 30 --agent --select variant,total_cost_usd,avg_cost_per_call
Compare LLM spend across A/B variants to decide if GPT-4o outperforms GPT-4o-mini in your context
Dashboard audit before all-hands
posthog-pp-cli dashboard health --stale-days 7 --json | jq '.[] | select(.issues | length > 0)'
Surface dashboards with broken filters or stale data before a stakeholder presentation
Auth Setup
Uses your PostHog personal API key (phx_...). Set POSTHOG_API_KEY or run posthog-pp-cli auth set-token. Supports both US (app.posthog.com) and EU (eu.posthog.com) instances via POSTHOG_HOST.
Run posthog-pp-cli doctor to verify setup.
Agent Mode
Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes.
Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
Filterable —
--selectkeeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:posthog-pp-cli flags stale --agent --select key,days_stalePreviewable —
--dry-runshows the request without sendingOffline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Explicit retries — use
--idempotentonly when an already-existing create should count as success, and--ignore-missingonly when a missing delete target should count as success
Response envelope
Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:
{
"meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
"results": <data>
}
Parse .results for data and .meta.source to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable N results (live) summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal — piped/agent consumers get pure JSON on stdout.
Agent Feedback
When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:
posthog-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
posthog-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
posthog-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at ~/.posthog-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless POSTHOG_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or POSTHOG_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true. Default behavior is local-only.
Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.
Output Delivery
Every command accepts --deliver <sink>. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:
| Sink | Effect |
|---|---|
stdout |
Default; write to stdout only |
file:<path> |
Atomically write output to <path> (tmp + rename) |
webhook:<url> |
POST the output body to the URL (application/json or application/x-ndjson when --compact) |
Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.
Named Profiles
A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.
posthog-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
posthog-pp-cli --profile briefing flags stale
posthog-pp-cli profile list --json
posthog-pp-cli profile show briefing
posthog-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes
Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. agent-context lists all available profiles under available_profiles so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.
Exit Codes
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Success |
| 2 | Usage error (wrong arguments) |
| 3 | Resource not found |
| 4 | Authentication required |
| 5 | API error (upstream issue) |
| 7 | Rate limited (wait and retry) |
| 10 | Config error |
Argument Parsing
Parse $ARGUMENTS:
- Empty,
help, or--help→ showposthog-pp-cli --helpoutput - Starts with
install→ ends withmcp→ MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above - Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with
--agent)
MCP Server Installation
Install the MCP binary from this CLI's published public-library entry or pre-built release, then register it:
claude mcp add posthog-pp-mcp -- posthog-pp-mcp
Verify: claude mcp list
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
which posthog-pp-cliIf not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill). - Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
- Execute with the
--agentflag:posthog-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent - If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
posthog-pp-cli <command> --help.