Active Feature Flags, PostHog

Active Feature Flags for PostHog stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Analytics

At a glance

Active Feature Flags is a feature-flags metric tracked from PostHog data. It counts the feature flags currently enabled in your PostHog project, the toggles that gate experiments, gradual rollouts, and conditional storefront logic. A creeping count signals flag debt: each live flag is a branch in your code that someone has to reason about. Pair it with Stale Feature Flags and Feature Flag Rollout Status to keep the flag estate clean.

What it counts	The number of active (enabled) feature flags in the PostHog project for the selected period.
Sample type	Backend API data from PostHog, refreshed on the standard data refresh.
Why it matters	The metric appears in the Feature Flags category and complements the sibling cards listed below. A growing flag count without cleanup is a sign of accumulating technical debt.
Reading the value	Compare the current count to your expectation. A steady rise that never falls usually means flags are shipped but never retired.
Currency	count
Time window	RT
Alert trigger	-
Sentiment key	ph_active_feature_flags
Roles	owner, marketing

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your PostHog data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

A representative reading of Active Feature Flags for a typical merchant on PostHog. Suppose the card reads 18 active flags this week, up from 14 a month ago. Four new flags shipped, none were retired. That is normal during a release push, but the card is your reminder to check which of the older flags have reached 100% rollout and can be removed from code. Cross-reference Stale Feature Flags to see which of the 18 are cleanup candidates. For deeper investigation, use Vortex Mind to trace upstream causes; for natural-language exploration, ask Ask Viq.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Card	Why merchants reach for it
ph_feature_flag_rollout	Feature Flags sibling: per-flag rollout percentage.
ph_stale_feature_flags	Feature Flags sibling: flags fully rolled out and ready to retire.
ph_dau	Executive sibling: Daily Active Users, the audience your flags affect.
ph_event_volume	Event Health sibling: Total Event Volume.
ph_health_score	Executive sibling: PostHog Tracking Health Score.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in PostHog’s own dashboard:

Open the Feature Flags section in PostHog and filter to enabled flags. The count there should align with this card. Note that PostHog distinguishes a flag’s enabled state from its rollout percentage, so a flag at 0% rollout is still “active” if it is enabled.

Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction	What to do
Enabled vs rolled-out. Vortex IQ counts enabled flags, not flags actively serving a variant.	Variable	Cross-check the rollout status card.
Project scope. Multiple PostHog projects under one account are filtered to the connected project.	Variable	Confirm the connected project matches.
Refresh timing. A flag toggled minutes ago may not yet appear.	Marginal	Force a manual refresh.

Cross-connector reconciliation: complement with sibling cards in the same category for the full diagnostic picture. For divergence investigations, use Vortex Mind.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Q: How often does Active Feature Flags update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes for live integrations). For real-time signals, force a manual refresh from the dashboard.

Q: Does this count disabled flags? No. It counts flags that are currently enabled in the PostHog project. A disabled flag drops out of the count even though it still exists in the flag list.

Q: Why is my flag count climbing? Flags ship faster than they get retired. Once a flag hits 100% rollout and stays there, the experiment is over and the flag is safe to remove. Use the Stale Feature Flags card to find the cleanup queue.

Q: Can I customise the alert threshold? Yes, alert thresholds are configurable per profile in the Alert Rules tab. Adjust to match your business baseline rather than relying on the generic default.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Active Feature Flags is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across PostHog and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.