managing-experiment-lifecycle

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Guides experiment state transitions: launching, pausing, resuming, ending, shipping variants, archiving, resetting, and duplicating. Covers preconditions, implications for variant assignment and analysis, and the decision framework for when to use each action. TRIGGER when: user asks to launch, pause, resume, end, ship, archive, reset, or duplicate an experiment. DO NOT TRIGGER when: user is creating an experiment (use creating-experiments), configuring rollout (use configuring-experiment-rollout), or setting up metrics (use configuring-experiment-analytics).

12installs

Sourceposthog/ai-plugin

Added on2026-05-18

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add posthog/ai-plugin managing-experiment-lifecycle

SKILL.md Content

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Managing experiment lifecycle

This skill covers experiment state transitions — what each action does, when to use it, and how it affects variant assignment and analysis.

State diagram

text

draft ──launch──▶ running ──end──▶ stopped ──archive──▶ archived
                    │   ▲              │
                  pause resume    ship_variant
                    │   │         (also ends if running)
                    ▼   │
                  paused (flag inactive, still "running" status)

Any non-draft state ──reset──▶ draft

Actions and their implications

For each action, the two key questions:

Who sees what variant? (user perspective)
Who is in my analysis? (statistical perspective)

Launch (

experiment-launch

)

Transitions draft → running. Activates the feature flag and sets

start_date

.

Preconditions: must be in draft, flag needs ≥2 variants with "control" first
Pre-launch checklist: has at least one metric? Variants correct? Flag implemented in code?
Variants: users start being bucketed into variants based on the configured split
Analysis: data collection begins from
```
start_date
```

No request body needed.

Pause (

experiment-pause

)

Deactivates the feature flag. Users fall back to the default experience (typically control).

Preconditions: must be running and not already paused
Variants: flag is not returned by
```
/decide
```
— no new exposure events recorded
Analysis: no new data while paused, but existing data is preserved. Experiment stays "running".

No request body. Use

experiment-resume

to reactivate.

Resume (

experiment-resume

)

Reactivates the feature flag after a pause. Users are re-bucketed deterministically into the same variants.

Preconditions: must be paused
Variants: same assignment as before pause — deterministic bucketing
Analysis: exposure tracking resumes

No request body.

End (

experiment-end

)

Sets

end_date

and transitions to stopped. The feature flag is NOT modified.

Preconditions: must be running (launched, not already stopped)
Variants: users continue seeing assigned variants (flag stays active)
Analysis: results frozen to data up to
```
end_date
```

Optional body:

conclusion

("won", "lost", "inconclusive", "stopped_early", "invalid") and

conclusion_comment

.

Use this when you want to freeze results without changing what users see.

Ship variant (

experiment-ship-variant

)

Rewrites the feature flag so the selected variant is served to 100% of users.

Preconditions: must be launched (running or stopped). Cannot ship from draft.
Variants: ALL users see the shipped variant. The flag is rewritten with a catch-all group.
Analysis: if still running, the experiment is also ended (end_date set)

Always confirm with the user before shipping — this permanently rewrites the feature flag.

Required:

variant_key

(e.g. "test"). Optional:

conclusion

,

conclusion_comment

.

Returns 409 if an approval policy requires review before the flag change.

Archive (

experiment-archive

)

Hides a stopped experiment from the default list view.

Preconditions: must be stopped (end_date set)
Variants: no change — flag is unaffected
Analysis: no change — results remain accessible

No request body. Can be restored by setting

archived=false

via

experiment-update

.

Reset (

experiment-reset

)

Returns an experiment to draft state. Clears

start_date

,

end_date

,

conclusion

, and

archived

.

Preconditions: must not already be in draft
Variants: flag is left unchanged — users continue seeing assigned variants
Analysis: previously collected data still exists but won't be included in results unless
```
start_date
```
is adjusted after re-launch

No request body.

Duplicate (

experiment-duplicate

)

Creates a copy as a new draft with fresh dates and no results.

Important: always provide a unique

feature_flag_key

different from the original. If the same key is used, both experiments share a flag — changes to one affect both.

Optional: custom

name

(defaults to "Original Name (Copy)").

Decision framework

Situation	Action	Tool
Draft ready, flag implemented, metrics set	Launch	`experiment-launch`
Clear winner, significant results	Ship the winning variant	`experiment-ship-variant`
No significant difference after sufficient time	End as inconclusive	`experiment-end`
Something wrong, need to stop exposure temporarily	Pause	`experiment-pause`
Resume after pause	Resume	`experiment-resume`
Experiment ended, ready to clean up	Archive	`experiment-archive`
Need to start over with same config	Reset to draft	`experiment-reset`
Want a similar experiment with a fresh start	Duplicate	`experiment-duplicate`

Resolving experiments

All lifecycle actions require an experiment ID. If you don't have one, load the

finding-experiments

skill to resolve the user's reference (name, description, "latest", etc.) to a concrete ID before proceeding.

Error handling

Error message	Meaning
"Experiment has already been launched."	Can't launch a non-draft experiment
"Experiment has not been launched yet."	Can't end/pause/ship a draft
"Experiment has already ended."	Can't end/pause a stopped experiment
"Experiment is already paused."	Use resume instead
"Experiment is not paused."	It's already active
"Experiment is already in draft state."	Nothing to reset
"Experiment is already archived."	Already done

When you get a 400, explain the situation to the user rather than retrying.

managing-experiment-lifecycle

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Managing experiment lifecycle

State diagram

Actions and their implications

Launch (
`experiment-launch`
)

Pause (
`experiment-pause`
)

Resume (
`experiment-resume`
)

End (
`experiment-end`
)

Ship variant (
`experiment-ship-variant`
)

Archive (
`experiment-archive`
)

Reset (
`experiment-reset`
)

Duplicate (
`experiment-duplicate`
)

Decision framework

Resolving experiments

Error handling

managing-experiment-lifecycle

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Managing experiment lifecycle

State diagram

Actions and their implications

Launch (experiment-launch)

Pause (experiment-pause)

Resume (experiment-resume)

End (experiment-end)

Ship variant (experiment-ship-variant)

Archive (experiment-archive)

Reset (experiment-reset)

Duplicate (experiment-duplicate)

Decision framework

Resolving experiments

Error handling

Launch (
`experiment-launch`
)

Pause (
`experiment-pause`
)

Resume (
`experiment-resume`
)

End (
`experiment-end`
)

Ship variant (
`experiment-ship-variant`
)

Archive (
`experiment-archive`
)

Reset (
`experiment-reset`
)

Duplicate (
`experiment-duplicate`
)