Inbox Exploration

Exploring the Inbox

The Inbox is where PostHog surfaces signal reports — clusters of related observations

(signals) that have been aggregated into a single issue or trend (e.g. "Error rate spiked 3× on

/checkout"). Reports come from multiple source products: error tracking, session replay, web

analytics, experiments, and integrations like Linear, GitHub, and Zendesk.

Inbox is part of PostHog Desktop, PostHog's agentic surface for

engineering teams.

Don't assume the user's project has reports, or that any signal sources are configured — plenty

of projects don't have Inbox set up. Always run the setup-check workflow below before answering

the user's actual question.

When to use this skill

• "What's in my inbox?" / "What should I look at first?"
• "Show me actionable reports" / "What's PostHog flagged recently?"
• "Are there any reports about <topic / product area>?"
• "What signal sources are configured for this project?"
• The user pastes a report ID or URL and wants context
• "Fix this inbox item" / "turn this report into a PR" / "implement this report" — see

_Workflow: act on an actionable report_

• "Dismiss this" / "snooze this report" / "mark this resolved" / "I've fixed this" — see

_Workflow: resolve, dismiss, or snooze a report_

For deeper investigation, hand off to other skills and tools:

• signals skill — query document_embeddings via HogQL for raw signal text, semantic

search across signals, or to inspect every signal that contributed to a report.

• PostHog's product-specific MCP tools — when a report points at a specific error, log line,

session, person, or time range, reach for the matching domain tool to pull richer context:

• Error tracking: query-error-tracking-issues-list, query-error-tracking-issue,

query-error-tracking-issue-events for error-tracking-sourced reports

• Logs: query-logs, logs-count-ranges to find log activity around the issue
• Session replays: query-session-recordings-list, session-recording-get to find

recordings of affected users

• Persons / activity: persons-retrieve, advanced-activity-logs-list to inspect a specific user's

behavior

• Trends / SQL: query-trends, execute-sql for ad-hoc verification queries

A signal report tells you _what_ PostHog clustered. The product-specific tools tell you the

_underlying detail_ — pair them when the user wants to dig in.

Available tools

| Tool | Purpose |

| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| inbox-reports-list | Paginated list of reports with filters (status, search, etc.) |

| inbox-reports-retrieve | Full detail for a single report |

| inbox-report-artefacts-list | A report's full work log — signal_finding evidence, status judgments, commits, task runs, notes (read-only) |

| inbox-report-artefacts-retrieve | Full detail for a single artefact (read-only) |

| inbox-reports-set-state | Resolve (resolved), dismiss (suppressed), or snooze (potential) a single report |

| inbox-reports-bulk-set-state | Same transition for 1–100 reports in one call (per-id result) |

| inbox-source-configs-list | Configured signal sources (which products feed the inbox) |

| inbox-source-configs-retrieve | Full record for a single source config |

| inbox-source-configs-partial-update | Toggle a source's enabled flag (or adjust its config) |

| posthog:execute-sql (signals skill) | HogQL access to underlying signals (read the signals skill first) |

The inbox-reports-*-list / -retrieve, inbox-report-artefacts-list / -retrieve, and

inbox-source-configs-*-list / -retrieve tools are read-only. The exposed writes are inbox-reports-set-state (resolve / dismiss / snooze a single report),

inbox-reports-bulk-set-state (the same transition for 1–100 reports in one call) — see

_Workflow: resolve, dismiss, or snooze a report_ — and inbox-source-configs-partial-update, which flips a

source's enabled flag on or off (e.g. {enabled: false} to stop a source feeding the inbox);

-create / -update exist too for standing a source up or replacing it wholesale. Other writes

(pause processing, set implementation_pr_url) are not exposed via MCP today — the PR link is

populated on the product surface when a PR is opened against a report.

Terminology

What each report status means (in roughly the order a triage agent should care about):

• ready — judgment finished, actionable assessment available
• pending_input — waiting on user input to proceed
• in_progress — actively being summarized / judged
• candidate / potential — accumulated signals but not yet promoted to a real report
• failed — processing errored
• suppressed — manually hidden; not surfaced by default
• resolved — the work the report asked for is done. Terminal: a resolved report never re-promotes,

so a recurrence starts a fresh report linked back to it. Set automatically when a linked

implementation PR merges, or directly via inbox-reports-set-state (see the workflow below)

By default inbox-reports-list excludes suppressed reports and orders results by

-is_suggested_reviewer,status,-updated_at — the user's own suggested reports first, then by

status, then most recently updated. Refer to the tool's input schema for filter mechanics.

What "suggested reviewer" means

is_suggested_reviewer: true on a report means **the current PostHog user is one of up to

three people the report-research flow flagged as best-placed to act on this report**. It is

the strongest signal you have that a report matters to the user _personally_, and you should

lean on it when triaging.

How the flag is produced:

• While researching a report, the agent identifies the GitHub commits most relevant to the

underlying signals (e.g. commits that touched the failing code path).

• It fetches the authors of those commits, weights earlier/more-relevant commits more

heavily, and keeps the top three GitHub logins. These get persisted as a

SUGGESTED_REVIEWERS artefact on the report.

• At read time, those GitHub logins are mapped back to PostHog users via each org member's

linked GitHub identity (social auth or GitHub integration). If the _current_ viewer's

linked GitHub login is one of them, is_suggested_reviewer flips to true for that

report.

Practical implications for triage:

• A true value means "you wrote (or recently touched) the code this report is about" — not

"you were assigned this." It's heuristic, not authoritative.

• A false value doesn't mean the report is irrelevant — it can mean (a) someone else owns

the code, (b) no one in the org has a linked GitHub account matching the suggested logins,

or (c) the source material wasn't tied to a specific repo / commits.

• If the user asks "what should _I_ look at?", lead with is_suggested_reviewer: true

reports — these are the ones where the user's name is on the relevant code. Mention the

rest as a secondary group rather than mixing them in.

• If the user has _no_ suggested reports but the inbox isn't empty, say so explicitly

("nothing in the inbox is tied to code you've authored recently") rather than pretending

the top of the list is personalized.

Workflow: handling an empty or unconfigured inbox (read first)

Run this check whenever a user asks about the inbox for the first time in a session, or any

time inbox-reports-list returns count: 0. The diagnosis decides what to say next.

Step 1 — Look at source configs

inbox-source-configs-list
{ "limit": 50 }

Three meaningful cases:

Case A — no source configs at all (count: 0)

The user hasn't onboarded to Inbox / signals. Don't pretend the inbox has data. Tell the user

plainly that Inbox needs signal sources to be set up first, and that the recommended way to do

this is to install PostHog Desktop at <https://posthog.com/code>. Example response:

> Your project doesn't have any signal sources configured yet, so the Inbox is empty. Inbox surfaces

> issues and trends that PostHog automatically clusters from sources like error tracking, session

> replay, GitHub, Linear, and Zendesk. The fastest way to set this up is to install

> PostHog Desktop — once it's connected, signals will start flowing in

> and reports will appear in your inbox over the next day or so.

Stop here unless the user wants to discuss setup. Don't run further inbox tools — they'll all be

empty.

Case B — source configs exist but all are enabled: false

Sources have been set up at some point but are currently turned off. Tell the user no signals are

flowing right now. You can re-enable a source directly with

inbox-source-configs-partial-update { "id": "<source_config_uuid>", "enabled": true } (confirm

with the user first), or they can flip it on from the project's signals settings. Don't go fishing

for reports — anything still there is stale.

Case C — at least one source config is enabled: true

Setup looks healthy. If inbox-reports-list still returns nothing, it's most likely "give it time"

— signals are flowing but nothing has clustered into a report yet. Tell the user that, briefly

list which sources are active (e.g. "you have GitHub and error tracking enabled"), and offer to

check back later or to drop into the signals skill to look at raw signal volume.

If any source config has status: "failed", surface that as part of your reply — that source

isn't producing signals right now, which may explain a thin inbox.

Step 2 — Only then proceed to the user's actual question

If Step 1 found a healthy setup and at least one report exists, continue with the triage / drill /

filter workflows below.

Workflow: triage what's actionable

When the user asks "what should I look at?" or "what's actionable?":

Step 1 — Pull the ready/in-progress queue

inbox-reports-list
{
  "status": "ready,in_progress,pending_input",
  "limit": 20
}

If count: 0 comes back, jump to the empty/unconfigured workflow above before saying "your

inbox is empty" — the right reply depends on whether sources are configured.

Step 2 — Summarize by source and actionability

For each report, the response includes:

• id, title, summary
• status, priority, actionability (note: null for reports still in pending_input /

candidate — judgment hasn't run yet)

• signal_count, total_weight — how much underlying evidence drove the report
• source_products — which product(s) the underlying signals came from
• is_suggested_reviewer — whether the current user is a suggested reviewer for this

report (see "What 'suggested reviewer' means" above — it's based on GitHub commit

authorship of the relevant code, mapped to PostHog users via linked GitHub identity)

• implementation_pr_url — if a PR has been opened against this report
• _posthogUrl — clickable deep-link to the report; always include this in your response

Group the results so the user can scan quickly. **Lead with reports where

is_suggested_reviewer: true** — those are the ones tied to code the current user has

authored — and only then fall back to priority groupings for the rest:

## Inbox — 8 actionable reports

⭐ Suggested for you (1)
- Checkout error rate spiked 3× — error_tracking, 47 signals (you're a suggested reviewer)
  <_posthogUrl>

🔴 High priority (2 more)
- Session replays on /pricing show repeated rage clicks — session_replay, 12 signals
  <_posthogUrl>
…

🟠 Medium priority (4)
…

If no reports come back with is_suggested_reviewer: true, say so explicitly before listing

the rest — don't silently drop the section.

Step 3 — Offer the drill-down

End with a clear hand-off: "Want me to dig into the checkout errors?" → call

inbox-reports-retrieve for the full report, then optionally hop to the signals skill to look

at the underlying signal text.

Workflow: drill into a specific report

When the user pastes an Inbox URL or report ID:

inbox-reports-retrieve
{ "id": "<report_uuid>" }

Returns the full record including signals_at_run and artefact_count. Then read the report's

work log:

inbox-report-artefacts-list
{ "report_id": "<report_uuid>" }

This returns the report's evidence (signal_finding), the judgments behind its

status/priority/actionability (safety_judgment, actionability_judgment, priority_judgment,

repo_selection, suggested_reviewers), and its work-log (commit, task_run, note) — the

curated "why it exists and what's been done" view, in one read-only call.

Use the signals skill only when you need the raw signal text beyond the curated findings:

• Use inbox-reports-retrieve to get the report metadata + id
• Use inbox-report-artefacts-list for the curated evidence, judgments, and work-log
• Use the signals skill's Example 2 (fetch all signals for a specific report) — pass the

report ID as metadata.report_id in the HogQL query — only for the raw underlying signal text

The layers complement each other: inbox-report-artefacts-list gives you the curated/judged view

(evidence + judgments + PR/task-run history), and the signals skill lets you inspect the raw

observations that produced it.

Workflow: act on an actionable report

When the user wants to _do_ something about a report — "fix this inbox item", "turn this into a

PR", "implement this" — not just read it. A ready report with

actionability: immediately_actionable is the usual candidate. The discipline that matters here:

**a report is a diagnosis, not ground truth — verify it against the actual code before you

implement.** Reports from signals_scout (and any LLM-research source) are especially worth

double-checking; their summary often reads as a confident root-cause with file and function

names, but it can be stale or wrong.

Step 1 — Retrieve and check it isn't already handled

inbox-reports-retrieve
{ "id": "<report_uuid>" }

Before doing any work, look at:

• already_addressed — if true, the fix may already be in flight or merged; confirm with the

user before duplicating it.

• implementation_pr_url — if a PR is already linked, surface it instead of opening a second one.
• status — only ready reports carry a finished judgment. A candidate / pending_input

report hasn't been researched yet; don't implement off a half-formed summary.

Step 2 — Verify the diagnosis against the code (do not skip)

Start by reading the report's work log — its evidence and the judgments behind it:

inbox-report-artefacts-list
{ "report_id": "<report_uuid>" }

This surfaces the signal_finding evidence, the status/priority/actionability judgments, and any

commit / task_run history — exactly the "why it exists and what's already been done" you need

before touching code. Then the report's summary will name files, functions, and sometimes line

numbers. Open them and confirm the claim holds — that the cited code exists, still looks the

way the report describes, and actually produces the described failure. As a deeper fallback, pull

the raw underlying signals via the signals skill (metadata.report_id) if you need the signal

text behind the curated findings. If the diagnosis doesn't hold up, say so and stop — a wrong

report is itself a useful finding (and a candidate for _dismiss_ below), not a license to write a

speculative fix.

Step 3 — Scope the fix to the right layer

• If source_products includes signals_scout and the root cause is in a **scout's own

behavior** (the prompt it runs, a threshold it uses), the better fix is often the scout's

SKILL.md, not the harness. Note that per-team custom scouts live in the user's Skills Store,

not this repo, so the fix site may be out of reach of a repo PR — flag that to the user.

• Otherwise treat it like any normal change: follow the repo's conventions (CLAUDE.md,

area-specific skills), make the change minimal, and add a regression test that would have caught

the reported failure.

Step 4 — Open the PR and link it back

Open the PR following the repo's PR conventions. There is no MCP tool to set

implementation_pr_url — that link is populated on the product surface when a PR is opened

against the report. So reference the report in the PR description (its _posthogUrl) and tell the

user which report the PR addresses, so the loop is traceable.

Don't resolve a report because you opened a PR. When the fix ships as a PR, the merge is what

resolves the report — the tasks GitHub webhook does it automatically. Resolving by hand at PR-open

time asserts work that hasn't landed, and a reviewer looking at the inbox can't tell the difference.

Manual resolve is for fixes a PR merge will never cover — a skill-body change, a config change, a

NO_REPO report — see the workflow below.

Workflow: resolve, dismiss, or snooze a report

Three outcomes, one tool. Pick by what actually happened to the underlying issue:

| The issue is… | State | Why |

| --------------------------------------------- | ------------ | -------------------------------------------------- |

| fixed by work you did | resolved | terminal; the report has served its purpose |

| not real, or not worth fixing | suppressed | dismissed from the inbox, with the reason recorded |

| real but deferred, or fixed by something else | potential | back into the pipeline; reappears if it recurs |

inbox-reports-set-state
{
  "id": "<report_uuid>",
  "state": "suppressed",
  "dismissal_reason": "analysis_wrong",
  "dismissal_note": "Verified against products/foo/bar.py — the cited code path can't reach this state."
}

• state: "resolved" marks the requested work done, and is terminal — a recurrence starts a fresh

report rather than reopening this one. Allowed from ready / pending_input, or from a

suppressed report that held one of those when archived; anything else returns 409. **Only

resolve work that has actually landed.** A fix shipping as a PR resolves itself on merge (see

_Step 4_); resolve by hand only where the webhook can never reach — a skill-body edit, a config

change, a NO_REPO report. Don't use already_fixed + state: "potential" when _you_ did the

fixing: that pairing means "fixed by something else, might recur", so the report comes back.

• state: "suppressed" dismisses the report from the inbox; state: "potential" snoozes it back

into the pipeline. When snoozing, snooze_for: <N> holds it until it accumulates N more signals.

• dismissal_reason must be one of six server-validated canonical codes — already_fixed,

report_unclear, analysis_wrong, wontfix_intentional, wontfix_irrelevant, other — an

unlisted value returns 400. Reach for other plus a dismissal_note for anything that doesn't

fit a specific code. dismissal_note is free-form (≤ 4000 chars). Both persist as a DISMISSAL

artefact, so the rationale survives later transitions — always include them, on a resolve too,

so a future reader knows _why_.

• On a dismiss, snooze, or restore, the dismissal_note is also forwarded as a steering note to the

scout that filed the report, which every scout run reads at cold start, so what you write there is

what stops the same report being filed again. Write it for that reader: name the evidence that

settles it, not just the verdict. A resolve is not forwarded, since it says the report did its job

rather than that filing it was wrong; that note stays on the report. Forwarding needs the same

skill-editing access as leaving a scout note by hand, so on a project where you lack it the note

still lands on the report but does not reach the scout.

• It's a destructive, non-idempotent transition and returns 409 if it isn't allowed from the

report's current status (and 400 if dismissal_reason isn't a canonical code). Confirm with

the user before suppressing, and capture _why_ in the note — a dismissal with no rationale is

worse than none. A report you dismissed because the diagnosis was wrong (Step 2 above) is the

textbook case: suppress it with analysis_wrong and the evidence in the note. A refunded report

is frozen: snooze and resolve both come back 409 / skipped with an explanatory detail.

• To transition several reports at once, use inbox-reports-bulk-set-state with an ids

array (1–100). It applies the same state / dismissal_reason / dismissal_note / snooze_for

to every id and returns a per-id results list (in request order) plus a

transitioned_count / skipped_count / failed_count / not_found_count summary. Each id is

processed independently, so the call returns 200 even on partial failure — an id whose

transition isn't allowed comes back as skipped (the single-report 409) while the rest go

through. Inspect the per-id outcomes rather than assuming the whole batch succeeded.

Workflow: filter by topic or source

"Are there any reports about <topic>?" — start with search:

inbox-reports-list
{
  "search": "checkout",
  "status": "ready,in_progress,pending_input",
  "limit": 20
}

search matches title and summary. If the user is asking about a product area rather than a

keyword, use source_product:

inbox-reports-list
{
  "source_product": "session_replay,error_tracking",
  "limit": 20
}

If the keyword search returns nothing meaningful, hand off to the signals skill — semantic

search over signal text via embedText() will catch reports the keyword filter missed.

Workflow: review configured sources

When the user asks "which signal sources are set up?" or "is <product> hooked up?":

inbox-source-configs-list
{ "limit": 50 }

Each entry returns id, source_product, source_type, enabled, status, plus timestamps.

For full details (including the per-source config JSON — recording filters, evaluation IDs,

etc.):

inbox-source-configs-retrieve
{ "id": "<source_config_uuid>" }

Integration credentials live in a separate Integration model — they are not in the

config blob, so it's safe to summarize the contents back to the user.

The status field reflects the underlying data import or workflow:

• running / completed — feeding signals normally
• failed — the source isn't currently producing signals; flag this to the user

To turn a source on or off, use inbox-source-configs-partial-update with the config's id and

{ "enabled": true | false } — only the fields you pass change, so this is the right tool for a

plain toggle (-update replaces the whole record; -create stands up a new source). Confirm with

the user before flipping a source, since enabling one drives signal processing and spend.

inbox-source-configs-partial-update
{ "id": "<source_config_uuid>", "enabled": false }

Tips

• Check setup before assuming the inbox is empty. If inbox-reports-list returns count: 0,

call inbox-source-configs-list first — no sources means the user needs to install

PostHog Desktop to start receiving signals; sources-but-no-reports

means signals are flowing but nothing has clustered yet

• Always surface _posthogUrl so the user can click through to the report
• The default ordering already prioritizes the user's suggested reports — don't reorder unless

asked

• priority and actionability are null for reports still in pending_input or candidate

status; this is expected, not a bug — judgment hasn't run yet

• suppressed reports are excluded by default; pass status: "suppressed" explicitly if the

user wants to see hidden items

• The inbox writes exposed via MCP are inbox-reports-set-state (resolve / dismiss / snooze one

report), inbox-reports-bulk-set-state (the same for 1–100 reports), and

inbox-source-configs-partial-update (toggle a source's enabled flag). To _act_ on a report

(implement a fix), verify the diagnosis against the code first, then open a PR — see

_Workflow: act on an actionable report_. A PR-backed fix is resolved automatically when the PR

merges, so don't resolve it by hand at PR-open time; setting implementation_pr_url happens on

the product surface, not via MCP. Always also surface the _posthogUrl deep-link

• Never implement a report's fix straight from its summary. Reports — especially

signals_scout ones — are LLM diagnoses; confirm the cited files / functions / behavior in the

actual code before writing a fix. A report that doesn't hold up is a dismissal candidate, not a

fix

• For "what kinds of signals exist?" or "what's been happening recently across all sources?",

drop into the signals skill — the report layer hides individual observations; you need

HogQL on document_embeddings to see them

• Source configs don't have per-record deep-links — they live behind project settings, so

inbox-source-configs-retrieve returns no _posthogUrl. Don't confuse them with reports