Instrument Error Tracking

PostHogOfficialCreated by PostHog

Skill
Tool integration
Data and AI
MIT
Low risk

From the author

Add PostHog error tracking to capture and monitor exceptions. Use after implementing features or reviewing PRs to ensure errors are tracked with stack traces and source maps. Also handles initial PostHog SDK setup if not yet installed.

— the description by PostHog

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a structured procedure for instrumenting your codebase with PostHog error tracking. It guides the agent through detecting your platform, installing the necessary SDK, enabling exception autocapture, and configuring manual error boundaries. It also ensures that environment variables are handled securely and that source maps are correctly configured for frontend and mobile projects, allowing for clear, actionable debugging.

What it does

Detects your project's platform and framework automatically.
Installs and initializes the PostHog SDK if not already present.
Enables automatic exception capture for unhandled errors.
Assists in adding manual error capture at critical boundaries.
Configures source map uploads for readable stack traces.
Sets up required environment variables for secure API communication.

When to use it

After implementing new features to ensure robust error monitoring.
During code reviews when you identify a need for better exception visibility.
When setting up a new project and wanting to include error tracking from the start.
When you need to resolve minified stack traces in your production logs.

Advantages

Ensures consistent error tracking patterns across different platforms.
Reduces manual setup effort by automating SDK installation and configuration.
Promotes secure practices by enforcing the use of environment variables.
Improves debugging efficiency by linking errors to original source code via source maps.

Usage examples

“Set up PostHog error tracking for my React project.”: The agent will detect the React environment, install the PostHog SDK, enable autocapture, and guide you through setting up the necessary environment variables.
“I need to track errors in my Node.js backend using PostHog.”: The agent will identify the Node.js environment, configure the SDK, and help you place manual capture points in your catch blocks.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/posthog/instrument-error-tracking/download

Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip instrument-error-tracking.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by PostHog

Add PostHog error tracking

Use this skill to add PostHog error tracking that captures and monitors exceptions in your application. Use it after implementing features or reviewing PRs to ensure errors are tracked with full stack traces and source maps. If PostHog is not yet installed, this skill also covers initial SDK setup. Supports any platform or language.

Supported platforms: React, Next.js, Web (JavaScript), Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Go, Elixir, Angular, Svelte, Nuxt, React Native, Flutter, iOS, Android, and Hono.

Instructions

Follow these steps IN ORDER:

STEP 1: Analyze the codebase and detect the platform.

Look for dependency files (package.json, pubspec.yaml, Podfile, Package.swift, requirements.txt, go.mod, Gemfile, composer.json, mix.exs, etc.) to determine the language and framework.

Look for lockfiles (pnpm-lock.yaml, package-lock.json, yarn.lock, bun.lockb, go.sum, pubspec.lock, Podfile.lock, Package.resolved, mix.lock) to determine the package manager.

Check for existing PostHog setup (SDK initialization, env vars, etc.). If PostHog is already installed and initialized, skip to STEP 4.

STEP 2: Research instrumentation. (Skip if PostHog is already set up.) 2.1. Find the reference file below that matches the detected platform — it is the source of truth for SDK initialization, exception autocapture, and framework-specific error tracking patterns. Read it now. 2.2. If no reference matches, fall back to your general knowledge and web search. Use posthog.com/docs as the primary search source.

STEP 3: Install and initialize the PostHog SDK. (Skip if PostHog is already set up.)

Add the PostHog SDK package for the detected platform. Do not manually edit package.json — use the package manager's install command.
Follow the framework reference for where and how to initialize.

STEP 4: Enable exception autocapture.

Follow the platform reference to enable exception autocapture. This automatically captures unhandled exceptions without additional code.

STEP 5: Add manual error captures.

Identify error boundaries, catch blocks, and critical user flows where errors should be explicitly captured.
Add posthog.captureException() or the platform-equivalent at these locations.
Do not alter the fundamental architecture of existing error handling. Make additions minimal and targeted.
You must read a file immediately before attempting to write it.

STEP 6: Upload source maps (frontend/mobile only).

Configure source map uploads so stack traces resolve to original source code, not minified bundles.
Follow the platform-specific reference for upload configuration (build plugins, CI scripts, etc.).

STEP 7: Set up environment variables.

Check if the project already has PostHog environment variables configured (e.g. in .env, .env.local, or framework-specific env files). If valid values already exist, skip this step.
If the PostHog project token is missing, use the PostHog MCP server's projects-get tool to retrieve the project's api_token. If multiple projects are returned, ask the user which project to use. If the MCP server is not connected or not authenticated, ask the user for their PostHog project token instead.
For the PostHog host URL: check the projects-get MCP response for a region field — US maps to https://us.i.posthog.com, EU maps to https://eu.i.posthog.com. If the region is not available from the MCP response or from existing project configuration, ask the user: "Are you on PostHog US Cloud or EU Cloud?" Do not assume US Cloud.
Write these values to the appropriate env file using the framework's naming convention.
Reference these environment variables in code instead of hardcoding them.

STEP 8: Verify and clean up.

Check the project for errors. Look for type checking or build scripts in package.json.
Ensure any components created were actually used.
Run any linter or prettier-like scripts found in the package.json, but ONLY on the files you have edited or created during this session. Never run formatting or linting across the entire project's codebase.

Reference files

references/react.md - React error tracking installation
references/web.md - Web error tracking installation
references/nextjs.md - Next.js error tracking installation
references/node.md - Node.js error tracking installation
references/python.md - Python error tracking installation
references/django.md - Django
references/flask.md - Flask
references/php.md - Php error tracking installation
references/laravel.md - Laravel
references/ruby.md - Ruby error tracking installation
references/ruby-on-rails.md - Ruby on rails error tracking installation
references/ruby-on-rails.md - Ruby on rails
references/go.md - Go error tracking installation
references/dotnet.md - .net error tracking installation
references/dotnet.md - .net
references/elixir.md - Elixir error tracking installation
references/angular.md - Angular error tracking installation
references/svelte.md - Sveltekit error tracking installation
references/nuxt-3-7.md - Nuxt error tracking installation (v3.7 and above)
references/nuxt-3-6.md - Nuxt error tracking installation (v3.6 and below)
references/react-native.md - React native error tracking installation
references/flutter.md - Flutter error tracking installation
references/ios.md - Ios error tracking installation
references/android.md - Android error tracking installation
references/hono.md - Hono error tracking installation
references/fingerprints.md - Fingerprints
references/alerts.md - Send error tracking alerts
references/monitoring.md - Monitor and search issues
references/assigning-issues.md - Assign issues to teammates
references/upload-source-maps.md - Upload source maps
references/COMMANDMENTS.md - Framework-specific rules the integration must follow

Each platform reference contains SDK-specific installation and manual capture patterns. Find the one matching the user's stack.

Key principles

Environment variables: Always use environment variables for PostHog keys. Never hardcode them.
Minimal changes: Add error tracking alongside existing error handling. Don't replace or restructure existing code.
Autocapture first: Enable exception autocapture before adding manual captures.
Source maps: Upload source maps so stack traces resolve to original source code, not minified bundles.
Manual capture for boundaries: Use captureException() at error boundaries and catch blocks for errors that don't propagate to the global handler.

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer961 B
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer1.0 KiB
SKILL.md6.9 KiB
references/COMMANDMENTS.md1.5 KiB
references/alerts.md4.2 KiB
references/android.md4.8 KiB
references/angular.md9.1 KiB
references/assigning-issues.md6.8 KiB
references/django.md14.9 KiB
references/dotnet.md25.8 KiB
references/elixir.md10.0 KiB
references/fingerprints.md4.6 KiB
references/flask.md8.1 KiB
references/flutter.md13.3 KiB
references/go.md5.9 KiB
references/hono.md3.7 KiB
references/ios.md7.4 KiB
references/laravel.md13.1 KiB
references/monitoring.md8.7 KiB
references/nextjs.md15.8 KiB
references/node.md4.8 KiB
references/nuxt-3-6.md5.9 KiB
references/nuxt-3-7.md5.3 KiB
references/php.md6.4 KiB
references/python.md9.0 KiB
references/react-native.md10.4 KiB
references/react.md6.4 KiB
references/ruby-on-rails.md19.7 KiB
references/ruby.md3.6 KiB
references/svelte.md5.8 KiB
references/upload-source-maps.md4.2 KiB
references/web.md5.8 KiB

references/monitoring.md

AI agents: this is one page from PostHog's docs. Full index of Markdown docs for LLMs: https://posthog.com/llms.txt

Monitor and search issues

Canonical URL: https://posthog.com/docs/error-tracking/monitoring

Cloud region: This page uses US Cloud hosts. For an EU Cloud project, use https://eu.posthog.com instead of https://app.posthog.com (app host for links).

Monitoring issues

When you're monitoring issues in your project, there are generally two common workflows:

You're exploring issues to identify impactful and problematic areas. You should use sorting features.
You're looking for issues assigned to you to resolve them. You should filter by the Assigned to property.

Sorting issues

Issues can be sorted by the following properties:

Property	Description
Last seen	The issue that has the most recent exception
First seen	The issue that has the oldest exception
Occurrences	The number of exceptions in the issue
Users	The number of unique users affected by the issue
Sessions	The number of unique sessions affected by the issue

Sorting by last seen and occurrences are great ways to get a general sense of issues in your project. Sorting by users and sessions is great to find the most impactful issues if you're using other filters to narrow down your results.

Monitoring issues assigned to you

You can filter issues by the Assigned to property to find issues assigned to you. This is especially useful if you configure automatic issue assignment and configure alerts to notify you when new issues are created.

Finding specific issues

You can use the search bar at the top of the issue page to filter issues based on the properties of the exceptions in that issue.

Search results are matched based on properties of exception events grouped into the issues. For example, if you search for "TypeError", we show you all issues where any exception grouped into the issue has a type of "TypeError".

Unrelated results

You may see seemingly unrelated issues in your search results because your search term matches an exception in the issue group. For example, you may see an issues named RefreshError when searching "schema", because a get_schema method appears on the exception stack traces.

Filtering modes

The search bar provides two modes of filtering:

1. Exact property filtering

This operates like property filters elsewhere in PostHog, enabling you to add terms like where 'http_referer' is set or where 'library' equals 'web'. You add a property filter by clicking the property name shown here:

Image: Adding a property to the property filter

Added property filters look like this:

Image: Search bar with property filter

The results of both of these filter types (property filters and freeform search) are combined with AND logic, such that only exceptions that match all filters are included in the search results.

2. Freeform text search

This does text matching for a subset of the error tracking specific properties of the exception event. It splits the text you give it into tokens. The search matches an exception if each of the tokens in your search term appear in one of the following:

The exception type
The exception message
The function names in the exception stack trace (if known)
The file paths in the exception stack trace (if known)

For example, imagine you have an exception that looks like this:

TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined
    at Object.<anonymous> (/path/to/myfile.js:123:45)
    at Module._compile (module.js:653:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:664:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:566:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:506:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:498:3)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:694:10)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:204:16)
    at bootstrap_node.js:625:3

If you search for the term TypeError myfile.js, the exception matches this search, as it contains TypeError (as the exception type) and myfile.js (as a file path in the stack trace).

If you search for TypeError myfile.js abc, the exception would not match, as the token abc does not appear anywhere in freeform search properties.

If you want to search for longer exact strings, e.g. a particular exception message, you can group tokens into a single term using quotes, e.g. "Cannot read property 'name' of undefined" myfile.js would match, and "Cannot read property of myfile.js" would not.

Note, perhaps unintuitively, Cannot read property of myfile.js would match, because the tokens are ungrouped, and all of them appear somewhere in the exception search properties.

Searching chained exceptions

Exception events can have more than one exception in them, due to language features like exception chaining. For freeform search, we put the types, messages, functions and file paths of all exceptions into one list, and match if the token appears in any of them.

For example, if you had a chained exception with the messages MyCustomError: Failed to load user and Cannot read property 'age' of undefined, searching for cannot read property would match the exception, because it matches one of the exception messages (property appears in the "root" one).

Issue details

When you click on an issue, you'll see the details page of the issue.

This page shows you the following:

The stack trace, properties, and sessions related to the currently selected exception.
Name, description, status, assignee, and external tracking links for the issue.
A filterable list of all exceptions in the issue. Selecting an exception will show you the stack trace, properties, and sessions related to that exception at the top of the page.

Image: An issue, with an unfiltered exception list

Filtering exception occurrences within an issue

Once you've found and opened the issue you want to investigate, you can use the same search interface to filter the exception list for a particular instance of the issue. This is particularly useful in cases where some exceptions in the issue have information others don't and you want to use that information for debugging.

For example, you can add a property filter on http_referer that shows all exceptions where the http_referer is set:

Image: An issue, with a filtered exception list

Alerts

If you have a set of filters that you use often, you can create alerts for them. This way you can be notified when new issues match your filters. Learn more about alerts.

Improving search performance

We try to return results to you within a second, but sometimes if you're querying over large amounts of data, it may take longer. The following can improve the search performance:

Limit the time range you're searching over: 7 days is usually enough to get a sense for the trends of an issue over time.
Use freeform search rather than property filters: Our freeform searches are generally faster than property filters, as the total amount of data processed is smaller.

If you find your queries timing out or taking more than 30 seconds, please let us know in-app! We're always looking for benchmarks to improve against.

Suppressing issues

If you find issues that are not useful to you, you can suppress them by changing the status to Suppressed. We recommend that you also implement client-side suppression to not capture these exceptions in the first place, for cost and performance reasons.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs an MCP server, Needs Python, Needs Node.js

Security

What our scanner noticed· Low risk

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A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Created by

PostHog

Publisher

PostHog (Official)

Source

PostHog/skills · skills/omnibus/instrument-error-tracking · commit a5d30e7

Licence

MIT License (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-09

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by PostHog or PostHog.

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The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download instrument-error-tracking.zip