/formatting-insight-axes

name: formatting-insight-axes
description: >
  Pick the right y-axis unit when creating or updating an insight via
  `posthog:insight-create` or `posthog:insight-update` — both TrendsQuery
  (`trendsFilter.aggregationAxisFormat`) and SQL insights
  (`DataVisualizationNode`, `chartSettings.yAxis[].settings.formatting`).
  Use when the agent is about to add a `formula` purely to convert units
  (e.g. dividing seconds by 60 to display minutes), when a `math_property`
  or SQL column is a duration, currency, ratio, or large count, or whenever
  the user mentions "format the y-axis", "duration", "seconds", "minutes",
  "hours", "milliseconds", "ms", "percentage", "%%", "currency", "decimals",
  "axis label", or "axis unit" in the context of a graph insight.

Formatting insight axes

PostHog renders insights with a built-in axis formatter. Use it instead of contorting the query or a literal prefix/postfix to fake units.

The two insight kinds configure it in different places:

• **TrendsQuery** — `trendsFilter.aggregationAxisFormat` (this page, below)
• **SQL insights** (`DataVisualizationNode`) — per-column

`settings.formatting` (see [SQL insights](#sql-insights-datavisualizationnode))

The anti-pattern

If you are reaching for any of these, stop and pick a format below first:

• `formula: "A / 60"` with `aggregationAxisPostfix: " mins"` — manual seconds -> minutes
• `formula: "A / 1000"` with `aggregationAxisPostfix: " s"` — manual ms -> seconds
• `formula: "A * 100"` with `aggregationAxisPostfix: "%"` — manual ratio -> percent
• `aggregationAxisPostfix: "ms"` / `"s"` / `"min"` / `"hr"` on raw values

These freeze the unit at one scale. The built-in formatter picks a friendly unit per value (1.5s, 2m 12s, 1h 4m) and keeps the underlying series numerically correct for further math, breakdowns, and alerts.

Available formats

Set `trendsFilter.aggregationAxisFormat` on the TrendsQuery:

| Value | Use when the series is... | Renders as | | ------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | --------------------------- | | `numeric` (default) | a plain count | `1,234` | | `duration` | **seconds** (any scale) | `45s`, `2m 12s`, `1h 4m` | | `duration_ms` | **milliseconds** | `850ms`, `1.5s`, `1m 4s` | | `percentage` | already 0-100 | `47.3%` | | `percentage_scaled` | a ratio 0-1 | `47.3%` | | `currency` | money in the **project's base currency** | `$1,234.56` (or local code) | | `short` | large counts you want compacted | `1.2K`, `3.4M` |

Companion fields on `trendsFilter`:

• `aggregationAxisPrefix` — literal prefix (e.g. `"$"`) when you need a symbol

pinned to a specific currency or unit, regardless of project settings

• `aggregationAxisPostfix` — literal suffix; reserve for genuine units the

format can't express (e.g. `" req"`, `" events"`), never for `"mins"` / `"s"` / `"%"` — the percentage formats already append the `%` sign, so a `"%"` postfix renders `50%%`

• `decimalPlaces` — cap decimals (1 or 2 is usually right for currency / ratios)

Currency — pick `format` or `prefix` carefully

`aggregationAxisFormat: "currency"` renders with the **project's base currency** (set in project settings, defaults to USD). Use it when the underlying values are in that same currency — e.g. revenue events that PostHog auto-converts to the project's base currency.

If the values are pinned to a specific currency regardless of project (e.g. `$ai_total_cost_usd` is always USD, even on a EUR-base project), use `aggregationAxisPrefix: "$"` + `decimalPlaces: 2` so the symbol matches the data. Using `format: "currency"` here would render USD values with `€` on a EUR project.

When the series is in seconds

If the series is in seconds (latency, session length, time-to-first-event, processing time, page load, etc.), silently default to `aggregationAxisFormat: "duration"`. Do not stop to ask — the formatter is non-destructive (the underlying values stay in seconds either way, only the labels change), so picking it is always at least as good as raw seconds.

Only confirm with the user when they have **explicitly** named a fixed unit they want pinned ("show this in minutes", "graph the average in hours"):

> "I can pin the y-axis to minutes by dividing the series by 60, or use > PostHog's `duration` formatter which auto-picks seconds / minutes / hours > per value — `90s` renders as `1m 30s` and `5400s` as `1h 30m`. Which would > you prefer?"

In one-shot MCP contexts where no user is in the loop, just pick `duration` and move on.

Examples

Latency — duration in milliseconds

{
  "kind": "TrendsQuery",
  "series": [
    {
      "kind": "EventsNode",
      "event": "$pageview",
      "math": "p95",
      "math_property": "$performance_page_loaded"
    }
  ],
  "trendsFilter": {
    "aggregationAxisFormat": "duration_ms"
  }
}

Average session length — duration in seconds

{
  "kind": "TrendsQuery",
  "series": [
    {
      "kind": "EventsNode",
      "event": "$pageleave",
      "math": "avg",
      "math_property": "$session_duration"
    }
  ],
  "trendsFilter": {
    "aggregationAxisFormat": "duration"
  }
}

Revenue — currency in the project's base currency

{
  "trendsFilter": {
    "aggregationAxisFormat": "currency",
    "decimalPlaces": 2
  }
}

Fixed-currency value (e.g. LLM cost in USD) — pin the symbol

{
  "trendsFilter": {
    "aggregationAxisPrefix": "$",
    "decimalPlaces": 2
  }
}

Conversion rate — percentage from a 0-1 formula

{
  "kind": "TrendsQuery",
  "series": [
    {
      "kind": "EventsNode",
      "event": "checkout_completed",
      "math": "dau"
    },
    {
      "kind