[ioannisj]

Problem

identify lists "the user is opted out" as a guard that short-circuits the whole call, and opt-in says opt-out short-circuits identify. posthog-js and posthog-android don't do that. Their identify keeps going while opted out: it updates local identity and reloads flags. The only thing opt-out drops is the event.

• posthog-js identify() (packages/browser/src/posthog-core.ts:3327) only returns early for an uninitialized SDK, an invalid id, or _requirePersonProcessing. Opt-out is enforced in capture() (posthog-core.ts:1795). The person-properties hash only gets cached if capture() accepted the event (posthog-core.ts:3411-3424). Flags reload when the distinct id changes (posthog-core.ts:3456-3461).
• Flag loading doesn't depend on opt-out anymore: "Feature flag loading is no longer gated by capture opt-out" (posthog-js#3596 comment).
• posthog-android identify() (PostHog.kt:1592) has no opt-out check. Opt-out is enforced in capture() (PostHog.kt:972).

bootstrap already says the same thing: "opt-out suppresses event emission, not the local identity state".

Changes

• identify: the requirement now says client SDKs must not short-circuit identify on opt-out. While opted out, identify updates local identity state and person properties for flags, and reloads flags when the distinct id changes. It doesn't capture $identify / $set, and it doesn't update the dedup hash for an event it didn't capture. In the Behavior section, opt-out comes out of the step 1 guards and the Error handling drop list.
• Two new @client scenarios:
  • identify while opted out changes the distinct id, sends a flags request for the new id, and enqueues nothing
  • after opt-in, identifying again with the same properties still sends $set, because the opted-out call didn't cache the hash
• opt-in: optOut step 3 and Interactions now say opt-out blocks the event, and that identify still updates identity and reloads flags. What they say about capture / group / alias is unchanged.
• acceptance/public/identify.feature: the same two scenarios, built only from existing steps.
• Archived as openspec/changes/archive/2026-11-02-fix-identify-runs-while-opted-out/.

Reference coverage is partial. posthog-js defaultOptOutScenario (packages/browser/src/__tests__/browser-next-differential/scenarios.ts:126) checks identity state and that no event goes out while opted out, but its harness disables flags (legacy-browser-adapter.ts:54), so nothing in the reference suite covers the flags reload. The hash rule is covered by personProcessing.test.ts:1051, with the event dropped by before_send rather than opt-out.

Where other SDKs stand on the hash rule:

• posthog-android passes the opt-in scenario, but in the same-id anonymous-to-identified transition it caches the hash even when capture() dropped the event (PostHog.kt:1693).
• posthog-react-native (posthog-js packages/core) already keeps identity and flags running while opted out, but it caches the hash on a new distinct id regardless (packages/core/src/posthog-core.ts:399), so it fails the opt-in scenario.
• posthog-ios is picking up the same fix separately.

Testing

openspec validate --specs --strict --no-interactive: 68 passed, 0 failed.

Agent context

DRI: @ioannisj
Autonomy: Human-driven (agent-assisted)