PostHog Python

Please see the Python integration docs for details.

Development

Testing Locally

We recommend using uv. It's super fast.

1. Run uv venv env (creates virtual environment called "env")
   • or python3 -m venv env
2. Run source env/bin/activate (activates the virtual environment)
3. Run uv sync --extra dev --extra test (installs the package in develop mode, along with test dependencies)
   • or pip install -e ".[dev,test]"
4. you have to run pre-commit install to have auto linting pre commit
5. Run make test
6. To run a specific test do pytest -k test_no_api_key

PostHog recommends uv so...

uv python install 3.9.19
uv python pin 3.9.19
uv venv env
source env/bin/activate
uv sync --extra dev --extra test
pre-commit install
make test

Running Locally

Assuming you have a local version of PostHog running, you can run python3 example.py to see the library in action.

Releasing Versions

Updates are released using GitHub Actions: after bumping version.py in master and adding to CHANGELOG.md, go to our release workflow's page and dispatch it manually, using workflow from master.

Testing changes locally with the PostHog app

You can run make prep_local, and it'll create a new folder alongside the SDK repo one called posthog-python-local, which you can then import into the posthog project by changing pyproject.toml to look like this:

dependencies = [
    ...
    "posthoganalytics" #NOTE: no version number
    ...
]
...
[tools.uv.sources]
posthoganalytics = { path = "../posthog-python-local" }

This'll let you build and test SDK changes fully locally, incorporating them into your local posthog app stack. It mainly takes care of the posthog -> posthoganalytics module renaming. You'll need to re-run make prep_local each time you make a change, and re-run uv sync --active in the posthog app project.