PostHog is Django + Vite + Celery + plugin-server, backed by Postgres, ClickHouse, Kafka, Redis, and Temporal in Docker, fronted by an Envoy-style proxy at http://localhost:8010. The dev stack runs in detached mode under phrocs so the running processes are inspectable from this session via the phrocs MCP server. Browser MCP servers (chrome-devtools-mcp, playwright) drive the UI; nothing about this skill ships its own driver.

For /run: get the app reachable so the user can drive it. Success = http://localhost:8010 serves and the core units are ready. Do not chase crashed migration units, do not seed data unless asked.

For /verify: build (Vite HMR handles this automatically for frontend; backend changes need no build), run the same launch as /run, then drive the live app via a browser MCP to observe the change. The observation is the verification — tests and type checks don't substitute. For frontend/UI changes, the deep version of this workflow is the repo-local qa-frontend skill in local mode: scenario design from the diff, reproducibility retries, and annotated evidence.

All paths below are relative to the repo root.

Prerequisites

• flox 1.16+ provisions the toolchain — curl -L https://downloads.flox.dev/by-env/stable/install.sh | sudo bash
• Docker — OrbStack preferred on macOS (brew install --cask orbstack)
• 1Password CLI (optional) — brew install 1password-cli, only if .env.local contains op:// refs

Launch

For a normal developer stack, use the saved interactive setup:

hogli dev:setup          # first time only — interactive wizard picks which workers to run
hogli up -d -y           # start the stack detached under phrocs
hogli services:ready -y  # wait for Docker services (Postgres, CH, Kafka, Redis)
hogli wait -y            # broad all-process signal; confirm with the checks below
hogli doctor             # optional: stale migrations, zombie phrocs, disk pressure

For agent-managed QA, use the normal background stack unless the user asks to tune services. On a devbox, prefer hogli devbox:start --start-app for a new/stopped box; if it is already running without the app, start PostHog inside it:

hogli devbox:exec -- bash -lc 'cd ~/posthog && ./bin/hogli up -d -y'

Use hogli dev:intents, hogli dev:explain <intent>, and hogli dev:list-units <intent> only to understand route-specific dependencies; custom generated configs are not the default QA startup path.

First boot is 60-90s while Django imports and Vite warms. Stop with hogli down -y (leaves Docker services running for fast restart).

Is the stack ready?

There are two readiness bars. Don't conflate them.

Ready for /run — the app is reachable and you can drive it:

curl -sf http://localhost:8010/_health                                                         # 200
curl -sf -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' http://localhost:8010/                                 # 200 or 302
curl -sS http://localhost:8010/api/projects/@current | grep -q '"code":"not_authenticated"'   # API + DB reachable

For UI QA, backend and frontend are hard gates; add only units the route needs, such as mcp, feature-flags, nodejs, capture, or ingestion. Stop here. Do not chase crashed migrate-* units when only /run was asked — the stack is usable for launch, screenshot, and most UI scenes (home, login, settings, feature flags) regardless of migration state.

Ready for /verify of HogQL-backed scenes (insights, dashboards, web analytics) and for POST /api/setup_test/...:

• Also requires mcp__phrocs__get_process_status process="migrate-clickhouse" to show status:"done" exit_code:0. If it's crashed, see the gotcha below.

phrocs MCP tools — for either bar:

• mcp__phrocs__get_process_status (no args) — all units, with ready, exit_code, memory, CPU.
• mcp__phrocs__get_process_status process="frontend" — single unit.
• mcp__phrocs__get_process_logs process="backend" — tail recent stdout/stderr.
• mcp__phrocs__toggle_process process="<unit>" — restart one unit. Auto-mode blocks this on shared stacks (treated as restart-of-shared-infra). If blocked, ask the user to approve, or run phrocs stop && hogli up -d for a full clean restart.

Drive the UI for /verify

Every empty PostHog scene looks broken because no events exist. To verify a UI change, you need a workspace with realistic data. The canonical path is the same one the Playwright suite uses: POST /api/setup_test/organization_with_team/. Gated on DEBUG=True | E2E_TESTING | CI | TEST, all of which local dev satisfies via DEBUG=True. Implementation: posthog/api/playwright_setup.py + posthog/test/playwright_setup_functions.py:create_organization_with_team — 3 clusters via HedgeboxMatrix, ~5-10s end to end. Reference call site: playwright/utils/playwright-setup.ts:251.

Avoid hogli dev:demo-data for /run and /verify — it calls generate_demo_data with n_clusters=500 (default at posthog/management/commands/generate_demo_data.py:59) and takes 5-30 minutes. It exists for humans who want a big realistic dataset to play with; it's the wrong tool for automated launch-and-screenshot.

The full browser-MCP recipe:

1. new_page http://localhost:8010/login.

2. evaluate_script the workspace bootstrap. Per-call email so reruns don't collide; password fixed at 12345678; response gives back the team_id and a personal API key.

   const r = await fetch('/api/setup_test/organization_with_team/', {
     method: 'POST',
     headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
     body: JSON.stringify({ data: { skip_onboarding: true } }),
   })
   const { result } = await r.json()
   // result: { user_email, team_id, personal_api_key, organization_id, ... }
   return result

3. evaluate_script the in-page login. Runs in the page context so Django's CSRF middleware sees the right cookies (playwright/utils/playwright-setup.ts:282-291).

   const r = await fetch('/api/login/', {
     method: 'POST',
     headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
     body: JSON.stringify({ email: workspace.user_email, password: '12345678' }),
   })
   return r.status // 200 = logged in; 403 = you're not in-page; 400 = workspace setup didn't actually create the user

4. navigate_page to http://localhost:8010/project/{team_id}{scene-path}.

5. wait_for text or a [data-attr] element. PostHog attaches data-attr to virtually every rendered element; use it as the "page hydrated" signal. networkidle and load never settle because PostHog.js and Vite HMR keep polling.

6. take_screenshot. The accessibility snapshot from wait_for is also enough on its own for most "is this element present?" verifications — no pixel comparison needed.

For API-only calls (creating fixtures, hitting endpoints without a browser), use the personal_api_key from the setup_test response as Authorization: Bearer <key> — no login dance.

For deeper interaction (clicking, filling forms, inspecting console), the same MCP toolkit (chrome-devtools-mcp:* / playwright:*) covers it. No project-specific wrapper needed.

For /verify: diff → URL mapping

The frontend uses kea-router. The mapping rule:

Canonical sources to grep when the path isn't obvious:

• frontend/src/scenes/urls.ts — top-level URL helpers (urls.insights(), urls.dashboard(...), etc.).
• frontend/src/scenes/scenes.ts — scene-to-route registry.
• products/<name>/manifest.tsx — per-product routes.

Gotchas

• migrate-clickhouse and migrate-persons-db often crash on a cold hogli up -d due to a startup race. They start in parallel with migrate-postgres, and if Postgres isn't ready yet they crash. This is the hard prereq for POST /api/setup_test/... and for HogQL-backed scenes (insights, dashboards, web analytics) — but not for /run. Don't fix it unless the task needs HogQL/setup_test. When you do need to fix it, the canonical sequence is: wait for migrate-postgres to show status:"done" via mcp__phrocs__get_process_status, then restart the crashed migrations. mcp__phrocs__toggle_process is the surgical tool but auto-mode blocks it on shared stacks — fall back to phrocs stop && hogli up -d which re-runs everything in order, or run python manage.py migrate_clickhouse directly (you'll need set -a; source .env.services; set +a first so CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE=posthog, otherwise it targets default). If neither works (corrupted CH replica state in ZooKeeper from a partial run), hogli dev:reset is the only path — it wipes Docker volumes, destructive.
• hogli wait is a coarse all-process signal. Confirm with process-specific phrocs status, the curl probes, and the target route before deciding the stack is unusable.
• Vite serves on :8234, not the URL you browse. You browse http://localhost:8010 (the Envoy-style proxy). The proxy reverse-proxies Vite for /static/* and Django for everything else. Hitting :8234/ directly returns 404 because Vite has no index route at the dev-server root.
• Worktrees share Docker containers but compete for ports. All worktrees on the same machine resolve to the same posthog-clickhouse-1 / posthog-db-1 containers, so DB state is global. But ports 8000/8010/8234 can only be held by one worktree at a time — kill the granian/vite/phrocs of the other worktree before hogli up -d here.
• CSP warnings and 401s in the browser console are normal pre-auth. The preflight/login page tries to fetch /api/projects/@current, /api/users/@me/, and PostHog.js remote config — all 401 until you sign up. WASM/CSP "Report Only" warnings come from the dev CSP.
• Direct curl -X POST /api/login/ returns 403 (CSRF). Session login must run in-page via browser_evaluate so cookies and CSRF tokens flow. For non-browser API calls, use the personal_api_key from the setup_test response as Authorization: Bearer <key> — no CSRF on token auth.
• .env.local may use 1Password refs. Without op installed, refs become literal strings (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY=op://...) and downstream services fail with cryptic auth errors. Install op or replace with literals.

Troubleshooting

• hogli up -d exits with Another instance of bin/start is already running — previous run still active or crashed without cleanup. mcp__phrocs__get_process_status shows what's there; if nothing's running, rm bin/start.lock and retry.
• docker info fails with dial unix /Users/<you>/.orbstack/run/docker.sock: ... no such file — OrbStack is stopped. open -a OrbStack.
• /api/projects/@current returns 500 instead of 401 — Postgres or ClickHouse unreachable. docker ps | grep posthog- and look for unhealthy containers; hogli services:ready waits for all of them.
• POST /api/login/ returns 400 invalid_credentials — you're logging in as a user the setup_test workspace didn't actually create (CH crash usually). Check the response of the setup_test call; if it 500'd, fix CH first (see the migrate-clickhouse gotcha).
• POST /api/setup_test/organization_with_team/ returns 404 — DEBUG, E2E_TESTING, CI, and TEST are all false. Local dev has DEBUG=True by default; if it's not set, .env.local is missing or DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE points at a prod-like settings module.
• POST /api/setup_test/organization_with_team/ returns 500 Table posthog.person does not exist — migrate-clickhouse crashed during boot. See the gotcha above.
• In-page fetch('/api/login/') returns 403 — you're calling it from outside the page context (e.g. page.request.post rather than page.evaluate). Use evaluate_script / browser_evaluate so the call originates in-page.