Usage Analytics Event Inventory

This document lists the first-party PostHog usage analytics events emitted by PostHog Debugger and when each one is triggered.

Source files:

• Event contract and property allowlist: src/panel/analytics.ts
• Main panel trigger wiring: src/panel/App.tsx
• Detail, copy, warning, and network trigger wiring: src/panel/components/*

Analytics behavior

Usage analytics is intentionally narrow and privacy-conscious:

• Events are sent to the extension’s first-party PostHog project at https://eu.i.posthog.com.
• Persistence is memory; the session distinct ID is generated in memory and is not persisted.
• Autocapture, pageviews, pageleave, session recording, surveys, external dependency loading, web experiments, compression, and request batching are disabled.
• Every event includes extension_version, extension_browser, and build_variant.
• Internal builds, or local sessions with usageAnalytics.debugSession.v1 set to true, also include debug_session: true and usage_context: "author_debug".
• Inspected-page URLs, event names, payloads, distinct IDs, feature-flag keys, and raw property values are not included in these first-party usage events.
• Firefox starts usage analytics only if optional technical and interaction data permission is granted.

Event inventory

Event	Trigger	Properties
extension_panel_opened	Fired once when the DevTools panel app mounts. Current default tab is config.	panel_tab
panel_tab_changed	Fired when the user changes from one panel tab to another.	from_tab, to_tab
capture_paused_toggled	Fired when the toolbar pause/resume control is clicked.	paused
capture_cleared	Fired when the toolbar clear button is clicked, before captured panel state is cleared.	event_count_bucket, network_count_bucket, warning_count_bucket
event_row_selected	Fired when the user selects a captured event row in the Events tab.	event_kind, warning_level, has_warnings, transport, status_bucket, source_frame
event_detail_section_viewed	Fired after an event is selected and the detail panel renders each available section for that event. Possible sections are properties, set_props, groups, raw_payload, and validation.	section
copy_action_clicked	Fired when the user clicks a copy action in event details, property rows, network diagnostics, or support tooling.	target
warning_interacted	Fired when the user clicks a validation or lint warning in an event detail view.	warning_code, warning_level
flags_view_opened	Fired when the user switches to the Flags & Session tab.	sdk_detected, flags_count_bucket
snapshot_refresh_clicked	Fired when the user clicks refresh in Config, Flags & Session, or Identity and a snapshot refresh completes.	sdk_detected
network_view_opened	Fired when the user switches to the Network tab.	request_count_bucket, failed_count_bucket
session_export_clicked	Fired when the user exports the current session from the toolbar as JSON or HAR, before download starts.	format, event_count_bucket, network_count_bucket

Common properties

Every captured usage event is enriched with:

Property	Meaning
extension_version	Version read from the extension runtime/package metadata.
extension_browser	chromium or firefox, based on build environment.
build_variant	external or internal, based on the packaged extension variant.
debug_session	Present only as true for author/internal debug sessions.
usage_context	Present only as author_debug for author/internal debug sessions.

Buckets and enums

Counts are bucketed instead of sent as exact values:

• 0
• 1-9
• 10-99
• 100-999
• 1000+

Status buckets are:

• none
• 2xx
• 3xx
• 4xx
• 5xx
• failed

Source frame values are:

• top
• iframe
• unknown

Copy targets are:

• raw_payload
• distinct_id
• api_key
• frame_origin
• frame_url
• property_value
• curl
• support_template

Export formats are:

• json
• har

Panel tabs are:

• config
• events
• network
• flags
• identity
• autocapture
• lint

Feature flag note

The extension reads the first-party PostHog feature flag analytics-linting-engine to decide whether to show the Lint tab. The flag read uses send_event: false, so it is not intended to emit a feature-flag exposure event.