finding-sessions-to-watch

Turns a vague wish to watch some session recordings into a short, filtered shortlist worth actually watching, instead of an unsorted dump of everything.

WHEN TO USE

SCOPE

USE FOR

Get a handful of session recordings worth watching for a goal like signup friction.
Find recordings where a particular event, like a rageclick, actually happened.
Surface the most active sessions to watch when there's no specific goal in mind.
Save a shortlist as a reusable view instead of re-running the same search.

NOT FOR

Investigating a recording whose ID is already known; that's the investigating-replay skill.
Finding a recording for a known error tracking issue; that's the finding-replay-for-issue skill.

This is a saved copy of the skill's SKILL.md instructions. It may differ from the upstream file or the version you install.

In this document (8)

Finding sessions to watch

Most people open session replay with a goal ("why are signups dropping?") but no idea which of thousands of recordings to watch. A raw, unfiltered list is the worst possible answer — it buries the useful sessions in noise. Your job is to turn their intent into a focused filter, return a handful of high-signal recordings, and offer to dig into one.

The starting points below are the same ones the product surfaces as "filter templates" — they encode the jobs people actually use replay for. Treat them as a menu, not a script.

The one rule

Never dump an unfiltered recording list. Always either (a) apply a goal-based filter, or (b) sort by a signal (activity, errors) so the first few rows are worth a click. If the user's goal is unclear, ask one short question or offer the menu before querying.

Available tools

Tool	Purpose
`posthog:query-session-recordings-list`	Find/filter recordings (the workhorse). Returns metadata + `id` per row.
`posthog:read-data-schema`	Confirm real event names, URLs, and property values before filtering.
`posthog:execute-sql`	Collect `$session_id`s for sessions where a specific event happened.
`posthog:cohorts-list`	Resolve a cohort name → id when scoping to a user segment.
`posthog:session-recording-playlist-create`	Save the resulting filter as a saved filter view (`type: 'filters'`).

Hand off to the investigating-replay skill once the user picks a recording to understand in depth.

Workflow

1. Pin down the goal

Map the request to one of the starting points below. If it's vague ("show me something interesting"), offer 3-4 options rather than guessing, or default to most active sessions (high signal, no setup).

2. Discover before you filter

Event names and URLs vary per project — never assume $pageview paths, a signup_completed event, or a person property exists. Confirm with read-data-schema (event_properties, event_property_values, entity_property_values) before putting a value in a filter. If the needed event/property doesn't exist, say so and suggest the closest available signal.

3. Run a minimal query

Call query-session-recordings-list with only the filters that serve the goal. Recommended settings:

set filter_test_accounts: true (the tool defaults to false) to exclude internal users, unless the user is debugging their own session.
date_from of -7d to -30d for goal-based searches; -3d for "recent".
A deliberate order — activity_score for "interesting", console_error_count for "broken", start_time for "recent".
limit: 10 — you want a shortlist, not a dump.

4. Triage and present

Don't relay raw rows. Pick the 3-5 most promising and say why each is worth watching (long active duration, many errors, reached the key page, high activity score). Deep-link each as {posthog_base_url}/replay/{id} — never /replay/home?sessionRecordingId={id}. Note total matches so the user knows how much is behind the shortlist.

5. Offer the next step

"Want me to walk through one?" → investigating-replay.
"Want to keep watching these?" → save it as a saved filter view with session-recording-playlist-create (type: 'filters' — a filter view, not a 'collection', which is for manually curated recordings and can't carry filters).

Starting points → filters

Two filter shapes cover almost everything:

Reached a page → recording metric visited_page ({ "type": "recording", "key": "visited_page", "operator": "icontains", "value": "/pricing" }).
Did a specific event (signup, search, rageclick, used a feature) → there is no event-name filter on the recordings query, so first collect session IDs with execute-sql, then pass them as session_ids (see the two-step pattern below).

User goal	Approach
Signup / onboarding / pricing / checkout friction	`visited_page` `icontains` the relevant path (confirm the real path first). Order `start_time`, or `console_error_count` to surface broken ones.
A specific feature	Two-step: `execute-sql` for `$session_id`s where the feature event fired, then `session_ids`. Pair with `visited_page` if the feature lives on one page.
Rageclicks / frustration	Two-step on the `$rageclick` event → `session_ids`.
Errors / something broken	`properties: [{ "type": "recording", "key": "console_error_count", "operator": "gt", "value": 0 }]`, order `console_error_count`.
A/B test / feature flag	`{ "type": "flag", "key": "<flag-key>", "operator": "flag_evaluates_to", "value": "<variant or true>" }`.
A specific person / segment	`person_uuid`, a `person` property filter (e.g. `email`), or a `cohort` filter (`cohorts-list` for the id).
Mobile / responsive issues	`{ "type": "event", "key": "$device_type", "operator": "exact", "value": ["Mobile"] }`, or `{ "type": "event", "key": "$screen_width", "operator": "lt", "value": 600 }`.
Most active users / "just show me good ones"	No filter; `order: "activity_score"`. The reliable default when the user has no specific goal.
Most active pages	`execute-sql` to rank `$pageview` by URL, then filter recordings by the hottest page's `visited_page`.

Two-step pattern: "sessions where event X happened"

The recordings query filters by event properties, not event names. To find sessions that contain a particular event, collect the session IDs first:

posthog:execute-sql
SELECT $session_id
FROM events
WHERE event = '$rageclick'          -- or your signup/search/feature event (confirm via read-data-schema)
    AND timestamp > now() - INTERVAL 7 DAY
    AND $session_id != ''
GROUP BY $session_id
ORDER BY max(timestamp) DESC         -- recent first: UUIDs aren't time-ordered, so the LIMIT must keep the freshest sessions
LIMIT 100

Then fetch those recordings (some session IDs won't have a recording — that's expected). Pass the same date_from window as the SQL step — with only session_ids, the query falls back to its -3d default and would drop sessions whose event was older than that:

posthog:query-session-recordings-list
{ "date_from": "-7d", "session_ids": ["<id1>", "<id2>", "..."] }

Worked example

User: "Why are people bouncing on our pricing page? Show me some sessions."

Goal = pricing-page friction → visited_page approach.
read-data-schema (event_property_values for $pathname) to confirm the path is /pricing.
Query:

posthog:query-session-recordings-list
{
  "date_from": "-14d",
  "filter_test_accounts": true,
  "order": "activity_score",
  "limit": 10,
  "properties": [
    { "type": "recording", "key": "visited_page", "operator": "icontains", "value": "/pricing" }
  ]
}

Present the 3-5 most active, each as {base}/replay/{id}, noting which lingered or hit errors.
Offer to investigate the most promising one (investigating-replay) or save it as a saved filter view (type: 'filters').

Tips

Prefer one good filter over many — over-filtering returns nothing and reads as "no data".
If a query returns zero recordings, widen the date range or loosen the filter before concluding there's nothing to watch; if it's still empty, recordings may not be captured for that flow (point the user to diagnosing-missing-recordings).
activity_score is a solid default proxy for "worth watching" when there's no sharper signal — but it rewards raw interaction volume, so prefer a goal-based filter (errors, a key page) when you have one.
Keep the shortlist short. The value is in choosing for the user, not handing back the haystack.

Related skills

investigating-replay — analyze one of the shortlisted sessions in depth
diagnosing-missing-recordings — when queries keep coming back empty and capture itself is in doubt
creating-replay-vision-scanners — turn a recurring shortlist into a scheduled Replay Vision scanner

This skill ships inside the PostHog AI Plugin. Listed package contents include 3 slash commands, 1 agent, hooks and an MCP server. Installed components and skill versions may vary by AI tool.

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Run this outside your AI tool, using Node.js 22.20.0 or newer. Skills CLI 1.7.2 skips skill selection; prompts cancel installation without an interactive terminal. If choosing Project when asked about installation scope, open your project's folder before running this.

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npx skills add posthog/ai-plugin --skill "finding-sessions-to-watch" --full-depth

After installing for Claude Code, open it in the installation project if you chose Project; Global makes the skill available across projects on this computer. Once Claude Code loads the skill, its description helps Claude decide when to use it.

If installation created a top-level skills folder that did not exist when your Claude Code session started, run /reload-skills in that session. Run it again after later changes in that folder.

MCP server required

The skill's steps call for tools from the PostHog MCP server. Installing just this skill doesn't add that connection; set it up in your AI tool if it isn't there yet: PostHog MCP setup. Installing the whole plugin instead includes the connection settings.

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Connecting is free; sign in with your PostHog account.
Some tools use AI internally and may incur PostHog AI charges. Those tools require AI data processing to be enabled in your organization settings.

Install the whole plugin

This route installs the posthog plugin package selected for your AI tool.

Claude Code

Add PostHog's marketplace, then install the plugin

Run both lines in a terminal. They install PostHog's posthog plugin: this skill, PostHog's other skills, and a connection to PostHog's hosted MCP server.

claude plugin marketplace add PostHog/ai-plugin

02
```
claude plugin install posthog@posthog
```

Installation and loading

The plugin installs for you in every project and loads the next time you start Claude Code, or after /reload-plugins in an open session.
To connect your PostHog account, start claude, type /mcp, select plugin:posthog:posthog and follow the browser prompts.

Good to know

The plugin includes PostHog's session-capture hook; PostHog's README says it sends sessions to LLM Analytics only when POSTHOG_LLMA_CC_ENABLED=true and POSTHOG_API_KEY are both set.
If you use the separate posthog-telemetry plugin, PostHog says to keep only one of the two, because both register the same hook.
On a self-hosted PostHog, this route's MCP connection won't reach your instance: the plugin's config is fixed to https://mcp.posthog.com/mcp, which routes to PostHog's US or EU region. POSTHOG_MCP_URL works only for the Gemini CLI extension.

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Same repository

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Finding sessions to watch

The one rule

Available tools

Workflow

1. Pin down the goal

2. Discover before you filter

3. Run a minimal query

4. Triage and present

5. Offer the next step

Starting points → filters

Two-step pattern: "sessions where event X happened"

Worked example

Tips

Related skills

MCP connection required

Install just this skill

Install the whole plugin

Add PostHog's marketplace, then install the plugin

More skills

adding-warehouse-person-properties

analyzing-expensive-users

analyzing-experiment-session-replays

assessing-heatmaps

auditing-endpoints

auditing-experiments-flags