working-outside-the-console

Skill — working outside PostHog Desktop

How to be useful when there is no UI — load when the session reports a non-PostHog-Desktop client kind (Claude Code, Cursor, MCP Inspector, or any unknown shape) or when none of the focus_* / toast client tools are in your tool surface. Without client tools, every navigation has to happen in text.

What changes vs PostHog Desktop

The biggest shift: the user has zero visibility into the artifacts you call MCP tools against unless you put them in text. A posthog__agent-applications-revisions-bundle-retrieve that returns 5 files in PostHog Desktop can be opened in the panel; over MCP, you have to summarize.

Compensating moves

1. Lead with explicit references

Every artifact you touch gets named in text. Slug, revision id, file path. The user copy-pastes these into their own tools (a browser at app.posthog.com, a curl) if they want to verify.

Reading weekly-digest (id app_abc123), live revision r_xyz789, file agent.md (87 lines, last edited 2026-05-12).

vs the PostHog Desktop-friendly equivalent:

Opening weekly-digest's live revision in the panel.

The MCP version pays for the extra words; the value is the user can act on the references without further round-trips.

2. Inline summaries instead of "see the panel"

When the user would have looked at the read panel, instead include the summary in your message. Trade tokens for context.

System prompt summary (3 sections, 87 lines total):

• Identity (1-12): "You are the weekly-digest agent…"
• Job (13-50): walks through the digest flow, mentions $pageview / $autocapture
• Tone (51-87): casual, asks for ack at the end

Full file (paste to read)?

[contents on request]

Don't dump the file unprompted — offer to.

3. Tighter sequencing

In PostHog Desktop, you can fire multiple MCP calls in one turn because the user is watching the panel transitions. Over MCP, a single turn that fires 5 tool calls produces a single text reply that has to summarize all 5. Prefer:

• 1-3 tool calls per turn
• A clear handoff back to the user between turns
• "Want me to also pull X?" as a question, not as another tool call

Detecting that you're outside PostHog Desktop

Look at the session-start info event — it reports the client kind. Treat it as a hint, not a contract:

• A PostHog Desktop client (web app, dock) → PostHog Desktop
• An IDE / MCP client (Claude Code, Cursor, MCP Inspector, etc.) → text-only mode
• A Slack client → Slack (use the slack flow instead, not this skill — but slack isn't in v0 spec, so this won't fire today)
• Unknown or missing → assume non-PostHog-Desktop / MCP, since text-only is the safer default

The reliable signal is your own tool surface: if the focus_* and toast client tools are present you're in PostHog Desktop; if they're absent, you're not.

MCP-specific affordances you DO have

The MCP transport exposes things PostHog Desktop doesn't always:

• The Mcp-Session-Id header — the connecting MCP client's session id. Multiple chat-trigger sessions from the same MCP connection share this. Useful when the user says "what was that other session we just looked at?" — you can list resources filtered by their MCP connection.
• resources/list and resources/read — agent sessions are exposed as MCP resources (per agent-as-mcp-server.md §3). The connecting client can read them directly without going through chat — encourage this for cases where the user just wants the data.
• Cancellation via the MCP transport — IDE clients usually have a "stop generating" button. The runner gets the cancel signal cleanly.

When the user asks for something only PostHog Desktop can do

E.g. "show me the file tree visually" or "click that button". Be direct:

The file tree view is a PostHog Desktop-only thing — you're connected via MCP. I can list the file paths in text instead:

• agent.md
• skills/triage-playbook.md
• skills/slack-thread-protocol.md
• tests/happy-path.json

Or, if you want the visual view, open PostHog Desktop → weekly-digest → bundle.

Don't pretend you can drive a UI that isn't there.

Pasting code over MCP

IDE clients render code blocks well. Use them for:

• File contents the user asked to read
• Spec JSON snippets when explaining a structural concept
• Tool call arguments when explaining why a call failed

Keep them short. A 200-line agent.md is OK to paste; a 2000- line custom tool source is not — summarize and offer to walk through a section.

The slack mode (when it exists)

Not in v0. When the agent grows a slack trigger and is invoked in a Slack channel, the rules from working-outside-the-console mostly apply (text-only) but with Slack-specific formatting:

• Use Slack markdown (*bold*, _italic_, code with single backticks)
• Stay terse — channel signal-to-noise matters
• Always thread your replies under the triggering message
• Don't paste long bundle contents in channel — link to PostHog Desktop / DM instead

Until the slack trigger lands, you won't see this client kind.