---
title: Create a user context using the PHP SDK
slug: feature-experimentation/docs/create-user-context-php
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-08-05T20:39:56.000Z
---

Create a user for which you can make flag decisions and track events. The user context is returned as a runtime object that is not otherwise persisted. The purpose of this method is to set a user context once, so you do not have to specify the user each time you make a flag decision or track an event. You can define multiple user contexts.

## Version

SDK v3.7 and higher

## Description

This call creates a user context for flag decisions and events. You can call this method on the Optimizely client instance, even when the instance is not fully configured yet.

## Parameters

The following table lists the required and optional parameters:

| Parameter                        | Type   | Description                                                                                                                                          |
| -------------------------------- | ------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **userId** \*required\*          | string | The ID of the user.                                                                                                                                  |
| **userAttributes**\ \*optional\* | map    | A map of custom key-value pairs specifying attributes for the user that are used for audience targeting. See the following section for more details. |

## Audience attributes

You can set custom audience attributes for the user, which you can then use to [Target audiences](docId\:UDBvr5a8WHNkyOqzPhOr9).  You can pass strings, numbers, Booleans, and `null` as custom user attribute values. If you want to target audiences based on the version of your application that they're using, you can also pass in a string formatted as a [semantic version](https://semver.org/), then define a `version`  audience condition in the Optimizely app.

:::hint{type="warning"}
**Important**
During audience evaluation, note that if you don't pass a valid attribute value for a given audience condition, for example, if you pass a string when the audience condition requires a Boolean, or if you forget to pass a value, then that condition is skipped. The [SDK logs](docId\:zvAS3KzBUNOSz9rSapn2j) include warnings when this occurs.
:::

## Returns

Returns an OptimizelyUserContext object. For details, see [OptimizelyUserContext](docId\:aNKH4srLYCTT3KQSCmC7A).

## Example

```php
$optimizely = OptimizelyFactory::createDefaultInstance('sdk-key');

// Option 1 – Create a user, then set attributes.
$user = $optimizely->createUserContext('user123');
$user->setAttribute('is_logged_in', false);
$user->setAttribute('app_version', '1.3.2');

// Option 2 – Pass attributes when creating the user.
$attributes = array(
                'device'=>'iPhone',
                'lifetime'=> 24738388,
                'is_logged_in'=> true,
                'app_version' => '4.3.0-beta'
            );

$user = $optimizely->createUserContext('user123', $attributes);
```

## See also

[OptimizelyUserContext](docId\:aNKH4srLYCTT3KQSCmC7A)

## Source files

The language and platform source files containing the implementation for PHP are available on [Github](https://github.com/optimizely/php-sdk/blob/master/src/Optimizely/Optimizely.php).