Writing Dataclasses

Writing dataclasses

The point of every rule here is the same: values that share a type get swapped silently, and a positional tuple or a dict[str, Any] lets that happen. A named, frozen dataclass makes the swap a typecheck failure instead of a runtime bug. Everything below follows from that; if a rule doesn't serve it in your case, say so in the PR and skip it.

When a dataclass, when not

• Return or pass a dataclass instead of a tuple when two or more elements share a type ((start, end), (width, height), (rows, columns)), or when the tuple has roughly 3+ elements and positional access hurts readability. A small tuple of clearly different types ((user, count)) is fine as-is.
• Prefer a dataclass over dict[str, Any] when a fixed set of values crosses a function boundary. A dict key typo fails at runtime; a dataclass field typo fails typecheck. Dicts stay for genuinely dynamic key sets.
• NamedTuple is not the answer for the swap problem: it still unpacks positionally.

Which decorator

Use @frozen from posthog.dataclasses for internal value and result objects. It is @dataclass with frozen=True, kw_only=True, slots=True as defaults, and every flag is overridable:

from posthog.dataclasses import frozen

@frozen
class BillingPeriod:
    start: datetime
    end: datetime

@frozen(slots=False)          # class uses functools.cached_property
class ParsedQuery: ...

@frozen(frozen=False)         # genuinely mutated after construction (a builder, an accumulator)
class RunAccumulator: ...

• kw_only=True is what actually prevents swaps at construction: BillingPeriod(start=a, end=b), never BillingPeriod(a, b). Don't override it without a reason.
• slots=True blocks functools.cached_property and ad-hoc attributes; override with slots=False rather than dropping @frozen.
• A bare @dataclass with no explicit frozen= fails the ratchet in posthog/test/repo_invariants/test_dataclass_defaults.py and is flagged by the advisory prefer-frozen-dataclasses semgrep rule. @dataclass(frozen=False) passes; the ratchet asks for a stated choice, not immutability. If you only moved an existing bare @dataclass, regenerate the baseline with python posthog/test/repo_invariants/test_dataclass_defaults.py instead of decorating it.
• Don't add frozen=False to a bare @dataclass you didn't otherwise touch. The ratchet counts per file against a baseline; an unchanged count passes, and the edit is churn in someone else's file.
• Facade contracts (products/<name>/backend/facade/contracts.py) are frozen dataclasses too, usually pydantic.dataclasses.dataclass(frozen=True) so they validate on construction. See products/architecture.md.

Naming

Name the class after the domain concept, not the plumbing: ClickHouseCredentials, BillingPeriod, SnapshotManifestItem. *Result only when the function's outcome genuinely is the concept; never *Info, *Data, *Tuple, *Response for an internal object. Underscore-prefix classes private to one module.

Constructing and enforcing invariants

• Enforce invariants in __post_init__ (start <= end, exactly one auth method set, value in range) so an invalid instance fails at construction rather than deep in later logic. On a frozen class use object.__setattr__ only if you must normalize; prefer raising.
• Type a field holding a closed set of strings as Literal[...] or an enum, not bare str. Check call sites: narrowing an existing field can surface mypy errors where callers pass a plain str; fix the callers, don't widen the field back.
• A frozen dataclass hashes, so use a small keyed class as a dict or set key instead of a tuple when the key has two or more same-typed parts.

Consuming and evolving

• Read fields with dot notation (result.start). Never a, b = result.a, result.b into positional locals; that reintroduces the swap.
• Evolve a frozen instance with dataclasses.replace(instance, field=value), not by copying fields by hand.
• Dispatch on variants with match/case (case BinaryOp(left=left, right=right):) when there are several; a single-type check stays a plain isinstance guard.

Secrets

Mark secret fields with field(repr=False) so they cannot leak through repr() into tracebacks and logs, and never asdict() such a dataclass into log output, which reintroduces what repr=False hides.

Passing a dataclass through layers

When a function's parameters mirror the fields of a dataclass the caller already holds, accept the dataclass instead of the unpacked fields. That stops same-typed positionals being threaded through several layers, and it is Fowler's Preserve Whole Object.

Three carve-outs, in priority order:

1. Invariants win over mirroring. Never pass a wider type into a callee that needs a narrower one. If the dataclass has url: str | None and the helper needs a str, keep the str parameter (or narrow the type at the boundary); do not accept the dataclass and add a runtime ValueError. That trades a typecheck for a guard clause, which is the opposite of the point.
2. Wire signatures keep their shape. Temporal @activity.defn/@workflow.run and celery task boundaries take what they take; the helper behind them accepts the dataclass.
3. Facade contracts that are also request bodies are wire signatures too. A contract in facade/contracts.py backed by DataclassSerializer and @validated_request is the HTTP body, the OpenAPI schema, and the shape shipped clients send. A product's logic may accept its own contract while the fields are one-to-one with what logic needs; do not pre-emptively build a parallel internal DTO. Split into an internal parameter object at the first real divergence: the wire carries dead or deprecated fields logic ignores, logic needs values the wire must not accept, or logic needs an invariant the wire can't promise. The split lives in facade/api.py, the only in-process caller.

What enforces this

• posthog/test/repo_invariants/test_dataclass_defaults.py (blocking ratchet): new bare @dataclass without frozen=.
• .semgrep/rules/devex/prefer-frozen-dataclasses.yaml and tuple-return-prefer-dataclass.yaml (advisory).
• Everything else is review.