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. |