From 00b577385d095208ddcde145d5e5ab43a7ee7364 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "posthog[bot]" <206114724+posthog[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:38:36 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] fix(messaging): stop merge tags inserting double quotes

The email templater menu built every person-property merge tag as
{{person.properties["name"]}}. The double quotes come from us, not the
user. Inside an HTML attribute like a link href, a double quote ends the
attribute and mangles the tag. When the quotes survive as an HTML entity,
the renderer resolves the tag to an empty string and the email sends a
blank value with no error.

Emit dot notation for identifier-safe names and single-quoted brackets for
everything else, matching buildDelayExpression in the workflows delay step.

Generated-By: PostHog Desktop
Task-Id: 4b35bbb8-8157-4e92-86f5-f619d4294408
---
 .../email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.test.ts | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 .../email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.tsx     | 17 ++++++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.test.ts b/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.test.ts
index bb5d615b3d4d..596b462ee5c2 100644
--- a/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.test.ts
+++ b/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.test.ts
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import {
     EditorRef,
     EmailTemplate,
     EmailTemplaterLogicProps,
+    buildPersonPropertyMergeValue,
     emailTemplaterLogic,
 } from './emailTemplaterLogic'
 
@@ -622,3 +623,18 @@ describe('emailTemplaterLogic', () => {
         })
     })
 })
+
+describe('buildPersonPropertyMergeValue', () => {
+    // Never emit double quotes: they end an HTML attribute like a link href, and entity-encoded they
+    // render an empty value. A bare identifier uses dot access; everything else uses single-quoted
+    // brackets.
+    it.each([
+        ['first_name', '{{person.properties.first_name}}'],
+        ['$browser', "{{person.properties['$browser']}}"],
+        ['renews on', "{{person.properties['renews on']}}"],
+        ['a.b', "{{person.properties['a.b']}}"],
+        ["it's", "{{person.properties['it\\'s']}}"],
+    ])('builds %s as %s', (name, expected) => {
+        expect(buildPersonPropertyMergeValue(name)).toBe(expected)
+    })
+})
diff --git a/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.tsx b/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.tsx
index ea337d437788..b4eacbb71a08 100644
--- a/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.tsx
+++ b/frontend/src/scenes/hog-functions/email-templater/emailTemplaterLogic.tsx
@@ -151,6 +151,21 @@ export function buildHtmlWrapDesign(html: string): JSONTemplate {
 const EMAIL_EDITOR_URL_PARAM = 'editor'
 const EMAIL_EDITOR_URL_VALUE = 'email'
 
+// A property name reads back as `person.properties.foo` only when it is a bare identifier. Anything
+// else (spaces, a leading $, punctuation) needs bracket access. Use single quotes, never double: a
+// double quote inside an HTML attribute like a link href ends the attribute and breaks the tag, and
+// when it survives as an HTML entity the renderer resolves the tag to an empty string. This mirrors
+// buildDelayExpression in products/workflows stepDelayLogic.
+const BARE_IDENTIFIER_REGEX = /^[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*$/
+
+export function buildPersonPropertyMergeValue(name: string): string {
+    if (BARE_IDENTIFIER_REGEX.test(name)) {
+        return `{{person.properties.${name}}}`
+    }
+    const escaped = name.replace(/\\/g, '\\\\').replace(/'/g, "\\'")
+    return `{{person.properties['${escaped}']}}`
+}
+
 export interface EmailTemplaterLogicProps {
     value: EmailTemplate | null
     onChange: (value: EmailTemplate) => void
@@ -499,7 +514,7 @@ export const emailTemplaterLogic = kea<emailTemplaterLogicType>([
                 personPropertyDefinitions.forEach((property: PropertyDefinition) => {
                     tags[property.name] = {
                         name: property.name,
-                        value: `{{person.properties["${property.name}"]}}`,
+                        value: buildPersonPropertyMergeValue(property.name),
                         sample: property.example || `Sample ${property.name}`,
                     }
                 })