docs(compliance): re-audit posthog-node Traces after 5.52.0

[turnipdabeets]

Changes

compliance/posthog-node.md still scored Traces ❌, based on an audit at posthog-js fbdb6c7b from before tracing existed. posthog-node 5.52.0 (PostHog/posthog-js#4579) shipped startSpan/withSpan/getActiveSpan and OTLP export to /i/v1/traces. This re-audits that one row.

• Traces: ❌ → 🟡. Audited at posthog-js 910b0925 (5.52.1) against sdk-specs 4f2f48f4. 22 of 24 requirements are met.
• Two MUST gaps, both in "Error handling and retries":
  1. During plain backoff (a 5xx with no Retry-After), the events pipeline's automatic flush still sends spans. throttled only reads the Retry-After window. That breaks "Between retries the SDK SHALL pause automatic sends".
  2. After a batch is retired inside an open Retry-After window, flush()'s outer loop sends the next batch at the same instant. The SDK's own test pins this at index.spec.ts:3100-3126, which contradicts the scenario "dropping a batch does not end the Retry-After window".
• Other updates in posthog-node.md: the intro sentence that claimed no Traces support in packages/node, and the header summary (now 10 ✅ · 17 🟡 · 7 ❌ · 28 ➖).
• README.md: updated the posthog-node summary row (🟡 16→17, ❌ 8→7; open gaps stay at 24), and moved the Traces gap from the ❌ table to the 🟡 table.

Not changed:

• The per-run narrative in README.md, which records the 2026-08-17 run's counts.
• The posthog-js and posthog-react-native Traces rows, which say "no implementation anywhere in the monorepo". @posthog/core has the pipeline now, but browser and RN don't use it, so both stay ❌. Only the wording is stale, and it belongs in those SDKs' next re-audit.

Worth a spec decision (not scored):

• A child started while a pass-through span is active gets recorded under the upstream id, but with the same handle as an explicit parent it's inert. The spec's "child of a pass-through is inert" rule doesn't settle which is right for the active case.
• A handle evicted for age still returns a traceparent and parents children, although the spec says it "becomes a no-op".

How was this checked?

A per-requirement audit of packages/core/src/traces/ and packages/node/src/ against openspec/specs/traces/spec.md, citing file:line for every requirement. The two gaps were re-checked by hand against the code (index.ts:350-352, client.ts:297-317) and the spec text (lines 866-869, and the scenario at 994).

Related docs PRs for the same release: PostHog/posthog#99441, PostHog/posthog.com#20109, PostHog/context-mill#391.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01QPLdjqTgK93WtVxnhx6aVr