triaging-error-issues

Most apps are throwing hundreds of errors at any moment and almost none of them matter; this picks out the handful that are new, spreading, or hitting a lot of people, and says what to do about each one.

WHEN TO USE

SCOPE

USE FOR

Get a prioritized "what's broken" list at the start of a daily or on-call review.
See which errors are brand new since the last deploy versus long-running background noise.
Rank issues by how many distinct users they're hitting instead of raw event volume.
Get a sample stack trace and URL for each top issue instead of just a title.

NOT FOR

Auto-assigning or auto-resolving issues isn't part of triage — that belongs to other skills.
Deep-diving a single issue's root cause is a separate skill's job, not this one.

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 (5)

Triaging error tracking issues

When a user asks "what's broken?" or wants a daily error review, the goal is a short prioritized list of issues worth a human's attention — not a dump of every active issue. Most projects have hundreds of active issues; the few that matter are usually new (first seen in the last 24-48h), spiking, or affecting many distinct users.

Available tools

Tool	Purpose
`posthog:query-error-tracking-issues-list`	List + rank issues with aggregate metrics (occurrences, users, sessions)
`posthog:query-error-tracking-issue`	Compact details for a single issue (status, assignee, top frame, release)
`posthog:query-error-tracking-issue-events`	Sampled `$exception` events with stack, URL, browser, and `$session_id`
`posthog:query-session-recordings-list`	Find replays of users hitting an issue
`posthog:inbox-reports-list`	Pre-curated actionable signals if the project uses Inbox

Workflow

Step 1 — Pick a window and a signal

Read the time window from the user's wording. Defaults if unspecified:

"Today" / "this morning" / "right now" → dateRange: { date_from: "-24h" }
"This week" / "since Monday" → -7d
On-call shift handoff → -24h

Pick what "matters" means:

New issues — orderBy: "first_seen", orderDirection: "DESC", tight window. Catches regressions introduced by recent deploys.
High-impact — orderBy: "users" ranks by distinct users affected. Better than raw occurrences for severity (one bot loop produces many occurrences but one user).
Trending — orderBy: "occurrences" over a short window vs a longer baseline to spot spikes.

Step 2 — Pull the candidate list

Start narrow and widen if too few issues come back:

posthog:query-error-tracking-issues-list
{
  "status": "active",
  "orderBy": "users",
  "orderDirection": "DESC",
  "dateRange": { "date_from": "-24h" },
  "limit": 20,
  "volumeResolution": 24
}

Match volumeResolution to the window (24 buckets for -24h, 14 for -14d, etc.) so each row's sparkline has enough resolution to show a spike vs flat steady state. A single bucket only gives a total, not a shape.

For new-issues-only, run a parallel query with orderBy: "first_seen":

{
  "status": "active",
  "orderBy": "first_seen",
  "orderDirection": "DESC",
  "dateRange": { "date_from": "-24h" },
  "limit": 10
}

If a project mixes browser and server SDKs, the top-by-users list is usually drowned by server-side errors (each invocation often gets a fresh distinct_id). Narrow with the library filter — values match the SDK's $lib, not the npm package name, examples:

web — posthog-js (browser)
posthog-node, posthog-python, posthog-ruby, posthog-go, posthog-php, posthog-java, posthog-elixir — server SDKs
posthog-edge — Cloudflare Workers / edge runtime
posthog-ios, posthog-android, posthog-react-native, posthog-flutter — mobile

Step 3 — Filter the noise

The list will include known noise. Before presenting, drop or call out:

Issues whose volume is flat over the window — they're not new, the user already lives with them. Surface them only if they're in the top by users.
Bot-only issues — if all events come from headless browsers or crawler user agents, flag for suppression (suppressing-noisy-errors) instead of triage.

If unsure whether an issue is new vs. recurring, compare first_seen to the start of the window:

first_seen inside the window → new, worth attention
first_seen weeks ago but spiking now → regression worth attention
first_seen weeks ago, flat volume → background noise

Step 4 — Add context for the top items

For the top 3-5 candidates, pull a sample exception so the summary includes a stack frame and URL, not just a title. Use posthog:query-error-tracking-issue-events rather than raw SQL — it returns normalized fields ($exception_types, $exception_values, $current_url, browser/OS, $session_id) and defaults to onlyAppFrames: true to strip vendor noise from the stack:

posthog:query-error-tracking-issue-events
{
  "issueId": "<issue_id>",
  "limit": 1,
  "include": ["exception", "stacktrace", "environment", "navigation", "correlation"]
}

If the user wants to see what users were doing, hand off to finding-replay-for-issue to pick the best linked recording. Don't fetch replays for every triaged issue — only the ones the user asks to dig into.

Step 5 — Present the triage list

Lead with a one-line headline ("3 new issues in last 24h, 1 spike, 5 active high-impact"). Then a short table sorted by your chosen signal:

Issue	First seen	Users	Sessions	Sample message	Suggested action
...	2h ago	142	198	`TypeError ... at checkout.js:42`	Investigate
...	spike	67	89	`Network request failed`	Watch — likely transient
...	3d ago	12	12	`chrome-extension:// timeout`	Suppress (extension noise)

For each, suggest one of: investigate (investigating-error-issue), assign (error-tracking-issues-partial-update), suppress (suppressing-noisy-errors), merge (grouping-noisy-errors), or resolve if it's already known fixed.

Tips

A single deploy often surfaces several related new issues. If multiple new issues share a properties.$lib_version (or properties.$exception_releases when the SDK is configured to populate it), present them grouped — a rollback decision rests on the cluster, not any one issue.
"Users" is the right severity proxy for user-facing apps. For backend services without a real distinct_id concept, fall back to sessions or occurrences.
Don't auto-assign or auto-resolve as part of triage. Present the list and let the user decide. Bulk actions belong in dedicated skills.
If the project uses Inbox (posthog:inbox-reports-list), check it first — PostHog may have already curated the most actionable issues so you avoid re-deriving them.
Provide each row's _posthogUrl (returned on every issue row) so the user can jump straight to the issue page if they want to drill down themselves. If you build the link yourself, use the full /project/<project_id>/error_tracking/<id> path, never a bare /error_tracking/<id>.

Related skills

investigating-error-issue — deep-dive a single issue off the triage list
grouping-noisy-errors — when triage is drowned by duplicate or over-split issues
suppressing-noisy-errors — mute known-noise fingerprints so future triage runs are cleaner
authoring-error-tracking-alerts — route the issues worth acting on to Slack or a webhook instead of re-triaging manually

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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Install checklist

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npx skills add posthog/ai-plugin --skill "triaging-error-issues" --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.

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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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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

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Same repository

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Triaging error tracking issues

Available tools

Workflow

Step 1 — Pick a window and a signal

Step 2 — Pull the candidate list

Step 3 — Filter the noise

Step 4 — Add context for the top items

Step 5 — Present the triage list

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