feat: add async feature flag evaluation

[marandaneto]

💡 Motivation and Context

Continues the async SDK work for #103. This PR is stacked on #899, supersedes #720, and incorporates its open review feedback.

The new await AsyncPosthog.evaluate_flags(...) method sends a non-blocking /flags request and returns the existing FeatureFlagEvaluations snapshot. Its is_enabled(), get_flag(), and get_flag_payload() accessors remain synchronous because they only read the returned snapshot. Passing that snapshot to capture(flags=...) attaches the exact values used for application branching.

This PR intentionally does not add the deprecated single-flag client methods or deprecated capture(send_feature_flags=...) behavior. It also does not add local flag-definition polling or fallback caches. The initial async API focuses on the reported problem: remote evaluation when local evaluation is unavailable. This avoids synchronous Redis access, poller lifecycle failures, and the deferred flag-called-event races reported on #720.

$feature_flag_called events use the synchronous buffered capture() method from #899. Deduplication therefore happens before control returns without scheduling extra tasks. The client also tracks flag and remote-config requests as in-flight operations so shutdown waits before closing its instance-owned HTTP transport.

await get_remote_config_payload(...) provides the corresponding non-blocking remote-config API with bearer authentication and encoded request paths.

All changes remain additive. Existing synchronous clients and module-level APIs are unchanged. The new constructor options are appended to the new async client's signature.

playgrounds/fastapi-async-client demonstrates the complete stacked API in FastAPI, including buffered and immediate capture, identify operations, exception capture, flag evaluation, remote config, flush, and lifespan-managed shutdown.

💚 How did you test it?

• uv run ruff format --check .
• uv run ruff check .
• uv run mypy --no-site-packages --config-file mypy.ini . | uv run mypy-baseline filter
• uv run --extra test pytest --timeout=30 -q - 2298 passed, 15 skipped, 36 subtests passed
• uv run --extra dev make public_api_check
• uv lock --check
• uv run python -W error -c "import posthog"
• Generated and imported the posthoganalytics mirror with the async flag APIs
• Autoreview against origin/feat/async-client-capture-v2 reported no actionable findings at 0b40643

📝 Checklist

• I reviewed the submitted code.
• I added tests to verify the changes.
• I updated the docs if needed.
• No breaking change or entry added to the changelog.

If releasing new changes

• Ran sampo add to generate a changeset file

🤖 Agent context

Autonomy: Human-driven (agent-assisted)

Implemented with pi. We narrowed the old #720 API to the recommended snapshot-based evaluation method and remote config. Prior review findings guided the retry contract, request sanitization, shutdown tracking, flag-called deduplication, and the decision to omit deprecated and local-evaluation surfaces from this stack.

[github-actions]

posthog-python Compliance Report

Date: 2026-08-26 14:53:06 UTC
Duration: 256380ms

✅ All Tests Passed!

111/111 tests passed

---

Capture_V1 Tests

✅ 94/94 tests passed

View Details

Test	Status	Duration
Endpoint And Method.Targets V1 Endpoint	✅	518ms
Endpoint And Method.Does Not Use Legacy Endpoints	✅	510ms
Required Headers.Has Authorization Bearer Header	✅	510ms
Required Headers.Has Content Type Json	✅	510ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Sdk Info Format	✅	510ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Attempt Header	✅	511ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Request Id	✅	510ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Request Timestamp	✅	510ms
Required Headers.Has User Agent	✅	510ms
Body Format.Body Has Created At And Batch	✅	510ms
Body Format.No Api Key In Body	✅	510ms
Body Format.No Sent At In Body	✅	511ms
Event Format.Event Has Required Root Fields	✅	511ms
Event Format.Event Uuid Is Valid	✅	510ms
Event Format.Event Timestamp Is Rfc3339	✅	510ms
Event Format.Distinct Id Is String	✅	510ms
Event Format.Distinct Id At Root Not Properties	✅	510ms
Event Format.Custom Properties Preserved	✅	510ms
Event Format.Set Properties Preserved	✅	511ms
Event Format.Set Once Properties Preserved	✅	510ms
Event Format.Groups Properties Preserved	✅	509ms
Event Format.Sdk Generates Uuid If Not Provided	✅	511ms
Event Format.Event Has Required Root Fields Batch	✅	514ms
Event Format.Event Uuid Is Valid Batch	✅	513ms
Event Format.Event Timestamp Is Rfc3339 Batch	✅	513ms
Event Format.Distinct Id Is String Batch	✅	514ms
Event Format.Distinct Id At Root Not Properties Batch	✅	513ms
Event Format.Custom Properties Preserved Batch	✅	514ms
Event Format.Set Properties Preserved Batch	✅	513ms
Event Format.Set Once Properties Preserved Batch	✅	514ms
Event Format.Groups Properties Preserved Batch	✅	513ms
Event Format.Sdk Generates Uuid If Not Provided Batch	✅	513ms
Batch Behavior.Multiple Events In Single Batch	✅	518ms
Batch Behavior.Batch Envelope Smoke	✅	515ms
Batch Behavior.Flush With No Events Sends Nothing	✅	507ms
Batch Behavior.Flush At Triggers Batch	✅	1010ms
Batch Behavior.Created At Reflects Batch Creation Time	✅	511ms
Deduplication.Generates Unique Uuids	✅	517ms
Deduplication.Different Events Same Content Different Uuids	✅	513ms
Deduplication.Preserves Uuid On Retry	✅	6519ms
Deduplication.Preserves Timestamp On Retry	✅	6519ms
Deduplication.Preserves Uuid And Timestamp On Batch Retry	✅	6522ms
Deduplication.No Duplicate Events In Batch	✅	519ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Attempt Header Starts At One	✅	510ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Attempt Header Increments On Retry	✅	13525ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Request Id Preserved On Retry	✅	6519ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Different Requests Have Different Request Ids	✅	3021ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Request Timestamp Changes On Retry	✅	6519ms
Response Format Validation.Success Response Has Uuid Keyed Results	✅	511ms
Response Format Validation.Success Response Has Ok For Each Event	✅	514ms
Response Format Validation.Success No Retry After When All Ok	✅	513ms
Response Format Validation.Success Retry After Present When Retry Events	✅	1515ms
Response Format Validation.Success No Retry After When Drop Only	✅	512ms
Response Format Validation.Response Echoes Request Id	✅	510ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 408	✅	6520ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 500	✅	6519ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 503	✅	8523ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 504	✅	6518ms
Retry Behavior.Retryable Errors Have Retry After	✅	3518ms
Retry Behavior.Respects Retry After On Retryable Error	✅	11517ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 400	✅	2514ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 401	✅	2512ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 402	✅	2514ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 413	✅	2514ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 415	✅	2513ms
Retry Behavior.Non Retryable Errors Have No Retry After	✅	2512ms
Retry Behavior.Implements Backoff	✅	22531ms
Retry Behavior.Max Retries Respected	✅	22537ms
Partial Batch Handling.Handles 200 Full Success	✅	2512ms
Partial Batch Handling.Handles 200 With All Ok	✅	3517ms
Partial Batch Handling.Does Not Retry Dropped Events	✅	3513ms
Partial Batch Handling.Does Not Retry Limited Events	✅	3516ms
Partial Batch Handling.Prunes Ok Events On Partial Retry	✅	6522ms
Partial Batch Handling.Prunes Dropped Events On Partial Retry	✅	6517ms
Partial Batch Handling.Retries Only Retry Events From Partial	✅	6523ms
Partial Batch Handling.Partial Retry Preserves Uuids	✅	6518ms
Partial Batch Handling.Partial Retry Attempt Header Increments	✅	6517ms
Partial Batch Handling.Partial Retry Request Id Preserved	✅	6518ms
Partial Batch Handling.Respects Retry After On Partial	✅	8521ms
Partial Batch Handling.Unknown Result Treated As Terminal	✅	3516ms
Partial Batch Handling.Mixed Ok Drop Limited No Retry	✅	3520ms
Compression.Sends Gzip Content Encoding	✅	512ms
Compression.No Content Encoding When Disabled	✅	509ms
Compression.Compressed Body Is Decompressible	✅	511ms
Error Handling.Does Not Retry On Unknown 4Xx	✅	2513ms
Event Options.Cookieless Mode Override	✅	511ms
Event Options.Disable Skew Correction Override	✅	510ms
Event Options.Process Person Profile Override	✅	510ms
Event Options.Product Tour Id Override	✅	510ms
Event Options.Unset Options Omitted	✅	510ms
Event Options.Options Override In Batch	✅	514ms
Geoip And Historical Migration.Geoip Disable Injected Into Properties	✅	510ms
Geoip And Historical Migration.Historical Migration Set In Body	✅	510ms
Geoip And Historical Migration.Historical Migration Absent By Default	✅	510ms

Feature_Flags Tests

✅ 17/17 tests passed

View Details

Test	Status	Duration
Request Payload.Request With Person Properties Device Id	✅	11ms
Request Payload.Flags Request Uses V2 Query Param	✅	9ms
Request Payload.Flags Request Hits Flags Path Not Decide	✅	9ms
Request Payload.Flags Request Omits Authorization Header	✅	10ms
Request Payload.Token In Flags Body Matches Init	✅	9ms
Request Payload.Groups Round Trip	✅	10ms
Request Payload.Groups Default To Empty Object	✅	9ms
Request Payload.Disable Geoip False Propagates As Geoip Disable False	✅	10ms
Request Payload.Disable Geoip Omitted Defaults To False	✅	9ms
Request Payload.Flag Keys To Evaluate Contains Only Requested Key	✅	9ms
Request Lifecycle.No Flags Request On Init Alone	✅	4ms
Request Lifecycle.No Flags Request On Normal Capture	✅	509ms
Request Lifecycle.Two Flag Calls Produce Two Remote Requests	✅	15ms
Request Lifecycle.Mock Response Value Is Returned To Caller	✅	10ms
Retry Behavior.Retries Flags On 502	✅	314ms
Retry Behavior.Retries Flags On 504	✅	314ms
Side Effect Events.Get Feature Flag Captures Feature Flag Called Event	✅	512ms

[greptile-apps]

Prompt To Fix All With AI

### Issue 1
posthog/test/test_async_request.py:151-173
**Incomplete retry-flow coverage**

The success-path test covers only one transient failure before success, while `async_flags` supports multiple attempts and attempt-dependent backoff. A regression in later retries or exponential backoff progression would therefore pass this suite undetected.

---

For each issue above, determine whether it is valid and should be fixed. If so, fix it directly.

_{Reviews (1): Last reviewed commit: "fix: evaluate flags for zero distinct ID" | Re-trigger Greptile}

[dustinbyrne]

Agent-led review, human-reviewed before posting.

[dustinbyrne]

httpx.RemoteProtocolError is a TransportError, but it is not a NetworkError. A server disconnect can therefore skip the configured retry. evaluate_flags() then catches the error and returns an empty snapshot. I reproduced this with feature_flags_request_max_retries=1: the first request raised RemoteProtocolError, the second would have succeeded, but the client made only one request. Could we include this transient error in the bounded retry policy and add a disconnect-then-success test?