diagnosing-experiment-results

Diagnosing experiment results

This skill answers: My PostHog experiment results look wrong, biased, or empty — what's going on?

Match the user's complaint in the dispatch table, then read the matching reference file for the diagnostic.

Each diagnostic in the reference files is tagged [HIGH], [MEDIUM], or [LOW] based on how strongly it's verified — [HIGH] is verified directly in PostHog code, [MEDIUM] is partially or team-source verified, [LOW] describes SDK/external behavior that wasn't verified here. Treat [LOW] items as hypotheses to test, not facts to assert.

Step 1 — Resolve the experiment

If the user refers to an experiment by name or description, load the finding-experiments skill first to resolve it to a concrete ID.

Call experiment-get and pull these fields. They are inputs for almost every diagnostic:

• parameters.feature_flag_variants[].rollout_percentage — the variant split
• parameters.rollout_percentage — the overall rollout (% of users entering the experiment)
• exposure_criteria.multiple_variant_handling — defaults to "exclude" if absent
• exposure_criteria.exposure_config.event — unset means the default exposure event; read which one from resolved_exposure_event ($feature_flag_called or $experiment_exposure — resolved server-side, same properties either way)
• exposure_criteria.filterTestAccounts — defaults to true
• feature_flag.active, status (draft / running / paused / exposure_frozen / stopped), start_date, end_date
• feature_flag.filters.groups[] — for each group read variant, properties, and rollout_percentage. Any non-null variant is a forced-variant override on the matched cohort (release-condition assignment, not randomized) — surfaces A7. Watch for the severe shape (A7b): a variant-pinned group with broad/empty properties at high rollout, or no group left randomized (variant: null) / no release path to one arm — that starves the other variant (one arm gets ~0 analyzable exposures). See references/bias-and-skew.md.
• stats_config — Bayesian (default) or Frequentist

Step 1.5 — Pull a diagnostic snapshot (verify before asking)

Before asking the user clarifying questions, pull the diagnostic snapshot in references/diagnostic-snapshot.md. Most diagnostics in this skill can be confirmed or ruled out from that data without an interview.

Step 2 — Match symptom to diagnostic

If the symptom is unclear, ask one clarifying question before picking. Most diagnostics have different fixes — do not guess.

Step 3 — Surface every diagnostic the evidence supports

After matching the symptom in Step 2 and reading the relevant reference file(s), list each diagnostic that applies before recommending an action.

Surface co-occurring mechanisms independently — even when one is more salient, don't collapse them into a single "wait" or "fix" recommendation. Different mechanisms have different fixes: a systematic bias (e.g. uneven-split + Exclude) doesn't resolve by waiting; a statistical pattern (e.g. small-sample variance) does. Bundling them leaves the bias in place after the user follows the bundled advice.

Only list mechanisms that have a path to verification in the project state — config (from experiment-get), snapshot data, activity log, or repo source. Config-derived mechanisms count: an 80/20 split with default multiple_variant_handling="exclude" is visible in experiment-get and is therefore enumerable. Naming a mechanism with no source (e.g. SRM when the snapshot shows a clean variant ratio) is not.

Diagnostic groups

A — Bias & skew

Variants don't look balanced, one variant looks biased, the in-app warning banner appeared, or users are showing up under multiple variants. Covers the uneven-split + Exclude interaction, SRM, identity fragmentation, bootstrap × /decide mismatch, and flag/experiment state inconsistency.

→ See references/bias-and-skew.md

B — Empty experiment / 0 exposures / "not enough data"

A frequent pain point. Covers SDK call (wrong evaluation method, identify() timing, dedup), exposure capture (custom event missing variant property, required properties, ad-blockers), and exposure-criteria match (test-account filter, eligibility ordering, events firing before exposure).

→ See references/empty-experiment.md

C — Significance / interpretation traps

Significance flipping, A/A test showing significance, Bayesian vs Frequentist confusion, multiple comparisons, low-volume variance, peeking / early stopping. Includes the legacy stats issue (A/A tests historically over-fired before the new Bayesian module) and how the win-probability methodology changed in Jan 2025 (single test vs control, not control vs all variants).

→ See references/interpretation.md

D — Numbers don't match (PostHog vs the user's SQL / raw count)

The experiment page applies an exposure scope, $multiple exclusion, test-account filter, and date range that ad-hoc SQL almost never replicates. Covers funnel attribution (only first→last step counts for stats), breakdowns (read from the exposure event, not the metric event), the "sum of revenue" mean-of-per-user confusion, and the recordings-panel-vs-stats divergence.

→ See references/numbers-vs-sql.md

E — Surprises after mid-run changes (incl. lifecycle and retention quirks)

Increasing rollout is safe; decreasing is caution; changing the variant split is an anti-pattern; adding metrics mid-run is p-hacking; ship-variant can rewrite the flag in surprising ways; reset clears results not the flag. Also covers retention-metric quirks (first-event-must-be-after-exposure design), "matured users" filtering, and long-term vs short-term metric divergence.

→ See references/mid-run-changes.md

F — Qualitative feedback: how the change landed, not how far the number moved

Groups A–E find mechanisms. F is for the question they can't reach: what the people in the experiment made of the change. A short survey, shown when users finish the experimented flow, adds that qualitative half — a rating and an optional comment, readable per variant — and works over MCP today.

It suits some experiments and not others. The gate is whether a user could describe the change without being shown both versions: a reworked flow, layout, or process work; a threshold or ranking tweak don't, however large its measured effect. Don't offer it while a mechanical diagnostic is still open — a survey on top of a broken flag gate collects opinions about a feature half the audience never received — and check whether an existing or recent survey already covers the window before proposing a new one.

Two things to get right before creating one: a survey shown to a single variant is itself a difference between the variants, and a running survey linked to the flag can generate exposure events.

→ See references/qualitative-feedback.md

Step 4 — Calibrate recommendations to experiment state

Surface diagnostics first (Step 3). Then recommend — but scope what you recommend to what the experiment's current state permits.

• Draft — config changes are free; recommend and apply.
• Running — every change has a tradeoff. Explain the mid-run impact (anti-pattern? safe? user-visible?) before recommending. See configuring-experiment-rollout and its reference file references/changing-distribution-after-launch.md for the mid-run rules.
• Stopped / archived — the experiment AND its feature flag represent the documented outcome of the run. Recommendations are scoped to (a) interpretation of the existing data, (b) what to do for the next experiment, or (c) explaining what happened.

On a stopped or archived experiment, don't preemptively offer reversal of a state mutation (ship-variant flag rewrite, manual flag edit, reset, archive). If the user asks "why did X happen?", explain X — don't append a "here's how to undo it" coda. That pattern assumes intent the user didn't signal. Conditional offers like "if this wasn't intended, you could…" or "want me to revert it?" count as preemptive too — only the user explicitly naming the reversal action ("how do I undo this?", "can I roll back ship-variant?", "how do I get the 50/50 split back?") is a request to surface reversal mechanics.

Use consistent terminology: variant split (between variants) is distinct from rollout (overall % entering); the default exposure event (resolved_exposure_event) is distinct from a custom exposure event; the Exclude / First seen options control multivariate handling, not exposure.

Related skills

• configuring-experiment-analytics — fix the exposure or metric configuration the diagnosis points at
• configuring-experiment-rollout — split-change anti-patterns and safe rollout adjustments
• managing-experiment-lifecycle — reset, end, or restart when the experiment can't be salvaged in place
• analyzing-experiment-session-replays — when the numbers are fine but you need to see the behavior behind them