Core Events Firing, PostHog

Core Events Firing 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: Key Metrics • Category: Analytics

At a glance

Core Events Firing is an event-health metric tracked from PostHog data. It reports how many of your designated core events, the business-critical actions like pageview, add_to_cart, checkout_started, and purchase, are currently recording activity. Think of it as a green-light board for your instrumentation: when every core event is firing, your funnel data can be trusted; when one drops off, downstream cards built on it quietly go wrong.

What it counts	The number of designated core events recording activity in the last 24 hours.
Sample type	Backend API data from PostHog event counts, refreshed on the standard data refresh.
Why it matters	Every funnel, retention, and conversion card depends on core events landing. This is the canary that tells you the data layer is sound.
Reading the value	Compare against the total number of core events you track. Anything below the full set means an event has gone quiet.
Currency	count
Time window	24h
Alert trigger	any core event count = 0
Sentiment key	ph_core_events_firing
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 Core Events Firing for a typical merchant on PostHog. Suppose you track six core events and the card reads 6 of 6 firing all month. After a tag-manager change on 21 May 26 it reads 5 of 6, with add_to_cart showing zero. The single missing event tells you exactly where instrumentation broke before any funnel or conversion card has a chance to mislead you. Cross-reference Event Tracking Broken to see when the silent event last fired. 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_alert_tracking_broken	Nerve Centre sibling: alert when a core event hits zero.
ph_top_events	Event Health sibling: your highest-volume events.
ph_event_volume	Executive sibling: total event volume.
ph_alert_event_volume_drop	Nerve Centre sibling: broad volume collapse alert.
ph_health_score	Executive sibling: overall tracking health score.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in PostHog’s own dashboard:

In PostHog, build a single trend insight that breaks all events down by name, or check the Data Management events list for last-seen timestamps. Any core event with a stale last-seen time is the one missing from this card.

Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction	What to do
Core set definition. Vortex IQ counts the core events you designate; PostHog lists every event.	Variable	Confirm the same core set.
24-hour window. A low-frequency event may not fire every day yet still be healthy.	Variable	Widen the window for rare events.
Event naming. A renamed event reads as a new event and an old zero.	Variable	Check for a renamed equivalent.

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 Core Events Firing 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: How do I choose which events are core? Pick the actions that matter to revenue and to your primary funnel: pageview, product view, add to cart, checkout start, and purchase are a common baseline. Configure the set so the card reflects what you cannot afford to lose.

Q: One event reads zero but it is a rare action. Is that broken? Not necessarily. A low-frequency event may not fire inside the 24-hour window. Reserve the core set for events that should fire daily, and widen the window for rare ones.

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.

---

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Core Events Firing 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.