fix(hogql): coerce numeric session/recording filter values

[posthog]

Problem

Filtering insights or session recordings by a numeric session/recording property (autocapture count, click count, etc.) returned a raw ClickHouse 500 instead of results.

The compare-op builder in posthog/hogql/property.py only coerced boolean values for session-type properties and did nothing for recording types. Numeric session/recording metric columns ($autocapture_count, click_count, …) are Int/Float in ClickHouse, so the builder emitted comparisons like equals($autocapture_count, '5') with a raw string constant. ClickHouse then failed the whole query with "Cannot convert string to Int", surfacing two ways:

• "There is a problem with this query" in the insight editor — $autocapture_count is labelled "Numeric" in the taxonomy but the value was never cast.
• An unhandled 500 in the session recordings list.

Both trace to one contained root cause on a code path shared by insight filtering and recordings.

Changes

• Coerce filter values to int/float for numeric session and recording metric properties across the comparison operators (exact, is-not, lt/lte/gt/gte, between, in). Session numeric-ness is keyed off IntegerDatabaseField/FloatDatabaseField in LAZY_SESSIONS_FIELDS; recording numeric-ness off the Numeric-typed keys in the replay taxonomy group.
• Raise a clean QueryError (a user-facing 4xx) when a numeric metric key is paired with a non-numeric value (e.g. an element label), instead of letting it reach ClickHouse as a 500.

Scope is intentionally the backend coercion on the shared HogQL path — that eliminates the raw ClickHouse error for both symptoms. The optional frontend guard (stopping a numeric metric key from being paired with a text value in the filter UI) is left out; the backend now turns that case into a clean validation error rather than a crash.

How did you test this code?

I'm an agent. I could not boot Django in this environment (no database reachable), so I did not run the full test suite. I did:

• Add unit tests in posthog/hogql/test/test_property.py:
  • test_session_numeric_property_coercion (parameterized over exact/is-not/lt/lte/gt/gte) — locks in that a string value against $autocapture_count becomes a numeric constant, guarding the "Cannot convert string to Int" regression that no existing test covered (only boolean session coercion was tested).
  • test_recording_numeric_property_coercion — same guarantee for recording click_count.
  • test_numeric_property_non_numeric_value_raises_query_error (parameterized over session/recording) — asserts a text value paired with a numeric metric raises QueryError rather than a raw 500.
• Validated the pure coercion logic (int/float/error branches) in isolation.
• Ran ruff check and ruff format --check on the changed files (clean) and byte-compiled both.

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🤖 Agent context

Autonomy: Fully autonomous

Authored by an agent (Claude Code) from a PostHog inbox report. No repo skills shaped the code beyond /writing-tests, which was invoked before adding the test cases to apply the value gate.

Key decision: detect numeric session fields via LAZY_SESSIONS_FIELDS field types and numeric recording fields via the replay taxonomy group's Numeric type (mirroring the existing virtual-property boolean handling), rather than hardcoding a column list — keeping the check aligned with what the taxonomy exposes. Coercion is applied only for value-comparing operators so is_set/is_not_set and string-search operators are untouched.

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Created with PostHog Code from an inbox report.

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