PostHog Deploy Integration

Overview

Deploy PostHog analytics integration to production. Covers client-side snippet deployment, server-side event capture with posthog-node , reverse proxy setup to avoid ad blockers, and self-hosted PostHog deployment using Docker.

Prerequisites

• PostHog project API key (starts with phc_ )

• PostHog personal API key for server-side operations

• Platform CLI installed (vercel, docker, or gcloud)

Instructions

Step 1: Client-Side Integration

// lib/posthog.ts import posthog from "posthog-js";

export function initPostHog() { if (typeof window !== "undefined") { posthog.init(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY!, { api_host: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST || "https://us.i.posthog.com", capture_pageview: false, // Manual pageview tracking loaded: (posthog) => { if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "development") posthog.debug(); }, }); } }

Step 2: Server-Side Event Capture

// lib/posthog-server.ts import { PostHog } from "posthog-node";

const posthog = new PostHog(process.env.POSTHOG_API_KEY!, { host: process.env.POSTHOG_HOST || "https://us.i.posthog.com", });

export async function trackServerEvent( distinctId: string, event: string, properties?: Record<string, any> ) { posthog.capture({ distinctId, event, properties }); await posthog.flush(); }

Step 3: Reverse Proxy (Avoid Ad Blockers)

// next.config.js - Proxy PostHog through your domain module.exports = { async rewrites() { return [ { source: "/ingest/static/:path*", destination: "https://us-assets.i.posthog.com/static/:path*", }, { source: "/ingest/:path*", destination: "https://us.i.posthog.com/:path*", }, ]; }, };

Step 4: Self-Hosted Docker Deployment

set -euo pipefail

Deploy PostHog self-hosted

git clone https://github.com/PostHog/posthog.git cd posthog docker compose -f docker-compose.hobby.yml up -d

Your PostHog instance at http://localhost:8000

Step 5: Vercel Deployment

vercel env add NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_KEY production vercel env add NEXT_PUBLIC_POSTHOG_HOST production vercel env add POSTHOG_API_KEY production # Server-side key vercel --prod

Error Handling

Issue Cause Solution

Events not appearing Wrong API key Verify phc_ project key

Ad blocker blocking Direct PostHog requests Set up reverse proxy

Self-hosted slow Under-provisioned Increase Docker resources

Missing server events Not flushing Call posthog.flush() in serverless

Examples

Basic usage: Apply posthog deploy integration to a standard project setup with default configuration options.

Advanced scenario: Customize posthog deploy integration for production environments with multiple constraints and team-specific requirements.

Resources

• PostHog Documentation

• PostHog Self-Hosting

• PostHog Node SDK

Next Steps

For webhook handling, see posthog-webhooks-events .

Output

• Configuration files or code changes applied to the project

• Validation report confirming correct implementation

• Summary of changes made and their rationale