Equivalent of `posthog.reset()` for `posthog-node`?

[kevinschaich]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

N/A

Describe the solution you'd like

posthog-node has an identify function. It seems weird to me then that there's no reset function as is available in the client lib.

If we're doing server-side pages for /login and /logout, how are we to reset props of the logged in user?

Describe alternatives you've considered

Manually deleting Posthog cookies on logout

Related sub-libraries

• [ ] All of them
• [ ] posthog-web
• [x] posthog-node
• [ ] posthog-react-native

Additional context

Thank you for your feature request – we love each and every one!

[MarconLP]

Hey @kevinschaich, the posthog.identify method in the posthog-node SDK will only set user properties onto the person. It will not set any cookies. You'll need to use any of the client-side SDKs to set cookies.

[kevinschaich]

Thanks for the reply @MarconLP. Are there any plans to change that, or at least a guide of how to correctly set / delete cookies to replicate the behavior of identify in posthog-js?

The reason I'm asking is server-side auth is becoming extremely popular nowadays with frameworks like Next.js / Nuxt / Svelte / Remix.

If all your auth logic (login / logout) is on the server, it doesn't make a ton of sense to handle the identify call on the client, and you could potentially call it more than once by mistake.

Here's an example of what Supabase does with their server side lib to enable setting/getting/clearing cookies:

https://supabase.com/docs/guides/auth/server-side/oauth-with-pkce-flow-for-ssr

[MarconLP]

Are there any plans to change that, or at least a guide of how to correctly set / delete cookies to replicate the behavior of identify in posthog-js?

We do not plan to change that, since you'll still need to call .identify at least once per session, to identify users who are coming back but are already logged in. You can solve the issue by running something like this every time your app is starting up:

if (isLoggedIn) {
  posthog?.identify(id, {
    name,
    email,
    subscriptionStatus,
  });
} else {
  if (posthog?._isIdentified()) { // only reset identified users to avoid resetting anonymous users every time this code runs
    posthog?.reset()
  }
}

[marandaneto]

The Node SDK is a stateless client, it's not caching any value so there's no need for reset (no cookies server side).

distinctId is always a required attribute.

For example, capturing an event: https://posthog.com/docs/libraries/node#capturing-events Identify a user https://posthog.com/docs/getting-started/user-properties#how-to-set-user-properties Setting user attributes if you are already capturing an event https://posthog.com/docs/libraries/node#setting-user-properties If you look at https://posthog.com/docs/getting-started/user-properties the method identify isn't even mentioned for Node and it uses the capture method instead with a $set or $set_once property which has the same effect of calling posthog.identify the difference is if you are using capture means that you are already capturing an event anyway and the identify is to just identify the user but there's no meaningful event along with it.

So if you do:

client.capture({
    distinctId: 'distinct_1',
    event: 'event_name',
    properties: {
        $set: { name: 'Max Hedgehog'  },
    },
})

// and
client.capture({
    distinctId: 'distinct_2',
    event: 'event_name',
    properties: {
        $set: { name: 'Markus Hedgehog'  },
    },
})

you don't need to reset anything since there are no cookies and what matters is the given distinctId.

posthog.identify(
  distinctId: 'distinct_1',
  { name: 'Max Hedgehog' }
);

// and
client.capture({
    distinctId: 'distinct_2',
    event: 'event_name',
    properties: {
        $set: { name: 'Markus Hedgehog'  },
    },
})
// same behavior if you call `identify`

Same since the distinctId is different anyway.