Validating the posthog connection

[aqeelat]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

In Node, in order to make sure we don't have an incorrect api key, it would be great if we can have an async function that checks that our sdk was initialized correctly.

Describe the solution you'd like

maybe await (new PostHog(apiKey)).validate(), or await PostHog.build(apiKey, { throwOnError: true })

Describe alternatives you've considered

I tried calling getAllFlags() and reloadFeatureFlags() but they don't throw, and I don't have flags that I can use to check.

Related sub-libraries

• All of them
• posthog-web
• posthog-node
• posthog-react-native

Additional context

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

[samueldurantes]

@aqeelat I think a good solution would be to create a new function that checks if apiKey is valid by making a request for PostHog server, and then calling it into constructor block, like this:

type OOptions = {
  throwOnError: boolean;
};

class O {
  readonly apiKey: string;
  readonly throwOnError: boolean;

  constructor(apiKey: string, options: OOptions) {
    this.apiKey = apiKey;
    this.throwOnError = options.throwOnError;

    this.init();
  }

  private async init(): Promise<void> {
    const profile = await this.getProfile();

    if (profile) {
      return;
    }

    if (!this.throwOnError) {
      console.log('ERROR: Instance not initialized correctly');

      return;
    }

    throw new Error('ERROR: Instance not initialized correctly');
  }

  private async getProfile(): Promise<boolean> {
    return Promise.resolve(false);
  }
}

new O('api-1234', {
  throwOnError: true,
});

This way, it wouldn't affect the end user because they wouldn't need to call a new function, just instantiate the class normally.

[marandaneto]

I'd not call in the constructor but rather have as a method you could call yourself if needed.
await posthog.validate() or something.
I think there's an API to validate the apiKey added by @zlwaterfield