suggesting-data-imports

PostHog only knows what happens inside your product; money, sales deals and support tickets live in other tools — this decides which of those to connect so both sets of data can be read together.

WHEN TO USE

SCOPE

USE FOR

Explain why a question about Stripe payments comes back empty — that data was never imported.
Recommend which outside tool to connect for revenue, sales pipeline or support-ticket data.
Check whether a system like Stripe or Hubspot is already connected before suggesting a new import.
Write a first report that puts the newly imported data side by side with product usage.

NOT FOR

Hand-picking tables, custom sync settings, webhooks, or CDC setup is a separate setup skill's job.

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 (7)

Suggesting data imports

This skill helps identify when data the user needs lives outside PostHog and guides them toward importing it via the data warehouse. The key insight is recognizing the gap — then connecting it to the right source type.

What PostHog collects natively

PostHog collects product analytics events, persons, sessions, and groups via its SDKs. Additional products are available but must be enabled: session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys, web analytics, error tracking, AI observability, conversations, logs, revenue analytics, workflows, CDP destinations, and batch exports. PostHog does not collect external business data like payments, subscriptions, CRM records, support tickets from other systems, or production database tables — that data must be imported via the data warehouse.

When to use this skill

A HogQL query fails because a table doesn't exist
The user asks about data from an external system (Stripe, Hubspot, Salesforce, etc.)
The user wants to correlate PostHog analytics with business data (revenue, support tickets, CRM records, etc)
The user asks "how do I get my X data into PostHog?"
Analysis requires joining PostHog events with external data
The user asks about exporting PostHog data for comparison elsewhere (in a google sheet, external warehouse, etc)

Workflow

1. Understand what data is missing

Listen for signals that the user needs external data:

They mention a specific tool or system (Stripe, Hubspot, Zendesk, their production database, etc.)
A query references a table that doesn't exist in PostHog
They want to analyze something PostHog doesn't track natively (revenue, support tickets, CRM deals, etc.)

If a query failed, check the error — if it's "table not found" or similar, the data likely needs to be imported.

2. Check what's already connected

Call posthog:external-data-sources-list to see existing sources. The data might already be imported but the user doesn't know the table name or prefix.

If a source exists for the system they're asking about, call posthog:external-data-schemas-list to show the available tables. The data might be there but under a different name or prefix.

Also query system.information_schema.tables with posthog:execute-sql to see all queryable tables — the data might already be available as a view or joined table.

3. Identify the right source type

If the data isn't imported yet, call posthog:external-data-sources-wizard to see available source types — when enumerating without source_type, pass fields: ['*.name', '*.caption'] to skip the large per-source config field definitions. Match the user's need to a source:

Common patterns:

User wants	Source type	Key tables
Revenue / payment data	Stripe, Chargebee, Shopify	charges, subscriptions, invoices, customers
CRM / sales pipeline	Hubspot, Salesforce, Attio	contacts, deals, companies
Support tickets	Zendesk	tickets, users, organizations
Product data from their DB	Postgres, MySQL, BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift	user's own tables
Marketing / ads	Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads	campaigns, ad_groups, ads
Email marketing	Mailchimp, Klaviyo	campaigns, lists, subscribers
Project management	Linear	issues, projects
Error tracking (external)	Sentry	issues, events

4. Suggest the import

Present the recommendation concisely:

What source type to connect
What tables would become available
How this enables the analysis they want

Example: "Your Stripe data isn't in PostHog yet. If you connect a Stripe source, you'll get tables like charges, subscriptions, and customers that you can join with PostHog events to analyze revenue by user behavior."

5. Offer to set up the source

If the user wants to proceed, the fastest path is the one-step data-warehouse-source-setup tool (validate creds → discover tables → sync defaults → create, in one call), with data-warehouse-source-connect-link to collect credentials securely in the browser rather than in chat. For anything beyond the happy path (hand-picking tables, non-default sync types, webhooks, CDC), hand off to the setting-up-a-data-warehouse-source skill, which covers the full flow, sync-type selection, webhook registration, and prefix guidance. Do not duplicate that workflow here.

6. Show what's possible after import

Once connected, help the user write their first query joining PostHog data with the imported data. Use posthog:execute-sql to demonstrate.

Common join patterns:

Join Stripe customers with PostHog persons on email: SELECT * FROM stripe_customers sc JOIN persons p ON sc.email = p.properties.$email
Join CRM deals with events: correlate product usage with sales outcomes
Join support tickets with session recordings: find recordings for users who filed tickets

Important notes

Don't guess table names. Always check system.information_schema.tables (via posthog:execute-sql) and posthog:external-data-schemas-list before saying data doesn't exist.
Check prefixes. Imported tables are often prefixed (e.g. stripe_charges not charges). The user might not know the prefix.
Collect credentials securely. Use data-warehouse-source-connect-link to hand the user a browser link — it opens a minimal connect page rendering the source's full connection form (OAuth or credentials, whichever the source offers) that stashes the details temporarily without creating the source. Afterwards pass {"credential_id": <id>} (discovered via data-warehouse-stored-credentials-list) to data-warehouse-source-setup — stored credentials are single-use and expire after 24 hours. Don't collect passwords or OAuth tokens in chat.
Not all systems are supported. If the user's system isn't in the wizard list, suggest using Postgres/MySQL as a bridge if they can export to a database, or mention that custom sources can be requested.
Connecting a source also documents it. After the first sync, PostHog automatically generates semantic descriptions for the imported tables and columns (from the source database's own column comments where present, plus an LLM pass using the table relationships and the team's business context). Those descriptions surface in system.information_schema.columns (query it with posthog:execute-sql), so once a source is connected the agent can reason about what each column means and how tables join — not just their names and types. Mention this when recommending an import: connecting the source is what makes the data answerable.

Related tools

posthog:external-data-sources-list: Check existing source connections
posthog:external-data-schemas-list: Check what tables are already imported
posthog:execute-sql over system.information_schema.*: See all queryable tables including views
posthog:external-data-sources-wizard: Get available source types (pass fields: ['*.name', '*.caption'] when enumerating)
posthog:data-warehouse-source-connect-link: Get a secure browser/OAuth link to collect credentials
posthog:data-warehouse-source-setup: One-step create (validate, discover tables, apply sync defaults, create)
posthog:execute-sql: Run queries to demonstrate what's possible

Related skills

setting-up-a-data-warehouse-source: Full source creation workflow — hand off here once the user decides to connect a source

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.

Install just this skill

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.

Install checklist

Check selected tools if a picker appears; Claude Code may be unchecked under Additional agents. ↑/↓ moves, Space toggles selections, Enter confirms.
Without a tool picker, check Installing to: for your intended tool. Stop if it names a different tool.
If asked, choose Symlink (Recommended) for shared files or Copy to all agents for separate copies; review the summary before confirming installation.
Install the find-skills skill? defaults to Yes, adding another skill for all projects. Choose No if you don't want that extra installation.

Skills CLI 1.7.2 sends install data to skills.sh by default, including the source, skill names, target tools and file details; GitHub sources are reported only when GitHub confirms the repository is public, while other remote sources can also be reported. Confirmed-public GitHub sources also trigger a security-audit request. Before installing, set the environment variable DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 to disable both.

npx skills add posthog/ai-plugin --skill "suggesting-data-imports" --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.

Requirements for the PostHog MCP server

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.

What's inside

Files included with this skill.

View on GitHub

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