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 likepageview,add_to_cart,checkout_started, andpurchase, 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, withadd_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. |