aaaaqwq/watchers-run

Watchers Agent - Run Skill

Manual run of the website change monitoring agent

When to use

• "run watchers"
• "check website changes"
• "run website monitoring"
• Testing after configuration change

What it does

Watchers Agent monitors target websites (competitors, clients, partners) for changes and sends Telegram notifications when important updates are detected.

How to execute

1. Full run (production)

cd $AGENTS_PATH/watchers
python3 watchers_agent.py

What happens:

• Loads configuration
• Checks targets that are due for checking (by last_checked)
• Downloads content and compares with saved snapshots
• Uses Claude Haiku to filter noise
• Sends Telegram notifications about important changes
• Updates state files

2. Dry-run (testing)

cd $AGENTS_PATH/watchers
python3 watchers_agent.py --dry-run

Use for:

• Testing after configuration change
• Checking new targets
• Debugging without sending notifications
• Previewing what would be detected

What does NOT happen:

• Does not update state files
• Does not send Telegram notifications
• Only shows what would have been done

3. Configuration check

cd $AGENTS_PATH/watchers
python3 watchers_agent.py --validate-config

Checks YAML syntax and outputs a list of enabled/disabled targets.

Use before:

• Adding new targets
• Changing selectors or thresholds
• First agent run

4. Telegram test

cd $AGENTS_PATH/watchers
python3 watchers_agent.py --notify-test

Sends a test notification to verify Telegram integration.

5. State reset

# Preview
python3 watchers_agent.py --reset-state --dry-run

# Actual reset (confirmation required)
python3 watchers_agent.py --reset-state

When to use:

• After major configuration changes (new selectors)
• If state files are corrupted
• To re-baseline all targets

WARNING: The next run after reset will treat all targets as new and may send many alerts.

Configuration

Configuration file

$PROJECT_ROOT/monitoring/watchers/watcher_config.yaml

Target example

watchers:
  - name: "Competitor Careers Page"
    url: "https://competitor.com/careers"
    type: webpage
    selector: "div.job-listings"  # CSS selector
    priority: high                 # low|medium|high
    check_interval: "1h"           # "1h", "4h", "24h"
    change_threshold: 5            # % change for alert
    tags: ["competitor", "hiring"]
    related_crm_id: "comp-competitor-001"
    enabled: true

Adding a new target

1. Open watcher_config.yaml
2. Add a new element to the watchers list
3. Find the correct CSS selector (DevTools -> Inspect)
4. Set enabled: true
5. Run --validate-config to check
6. Run --dry-run for testing
7. Run without flags for production

Output

Console

[2026-02-12 10:00:00] Loading configuration...
[2026-02-12 10:00:00] Found 5 target(s) due for checking
[2026-02-12 10:00:01] Processing [1/5]: Competitor Careers Page
[2026-02-12 10:00:03]   CHANGE DETECTED: 12.3% (modified_content)
[2026-02-12 10:00:05]   MEANINGFUL: job_posting - New position posted
[2026-02-12 10:00:10] Done: 5 checked, 2 changed, 1 alerts, 0 errors

Telegram Alert

🔥 URGENT - Website Change Alert

**Competitor Careers Page**
https://competitor.com/careers

Category: Job Posting
Tags: competitor, hiring
Change: 12.3%

New senior engineer position posted for ML team

Diff preview:

• Senior ML Engineer - Remote
• We are hiring a senior engineer to join our ML team...

💡 Outreach Trigger Detected
Suggested action: Review competitor hiring activity
Related CRM: comp-competitor-001

State Files

$PROJECT_ROOT/monitoring/watchers/state/competitor_com_careers.json

{
  "last_checked": "2026-02-12T10:00:00",
  "content_hash": "abc123...",
  "content_text": "Full page content...",
  "metadata": {
    "word_count": 1523,
    "fetch_timestamp": "2026-02-12T10:00:00",
    "http_status": 200
  },
  "failure_count": 0,
  "last_alert_sent": "2026-02-12T10:00:00"
}

Troubleshooting

"Selector not found"

CSS selector was not found on the page.

Fix:

1. Open URL in browser
2. Right-click -> Inspect -> find the correct element
3. Update selector in config

Too many false positives

Changes detected but not meaningful (timestamps, view counts).

Fix:

1. Use a more specific selector (exclude dynamic content)
2. Increase change_threshold for noisy targets
3. AI filtering should filter these automatically

Telegram not working

Check:

1. Run --notify-test
2. Check tg-tools session files
3. Look at stderr logs
4. Check pending_alerts.txt for failed alerts

Missed changes

Changes occurred but no alert was sent.

Check:

1. enabled: true in config?
2. Change >= change_threshold? Decrease threshold
3. AI filter rejected as noise? Check state file diff
4. Check watcher_log.json for errors

Emergency Stop

If the agent is flooding Telegram:

# Create PAUSE file
touch $PROJECT_ROOT/monitoring/watchers/PAUSE

# Agent will skip the next run

# Remove PAUSE to resume
rm $PROJECT_ROOT/monitoring/watchers/PAUSE

Scheduling (launchd)

Install

cp $AGENTS_PATH/watchers/com.yourcompany.watchers-agent.plist \
   ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.yourcompany.watchers-agent.plist

Check Status

launchctl list | grep watchers

View Logs

# stdout
tail -f /tmp/watchers-agent.log

# stderr (main logs here)
tail -f /tmp/watchers-agent-error.log

Uninstall

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.yourcompany.watchers-agent.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.yourcompany.watchers-agent.plist

Files

| File | Purpose | |------|---------| | watchers_agent.py | Main script | | watcher_config.yaml | Configuration | | watcher_log.json | Run history (last 100) | | pending_alerts.txt | Failed alerts fallback | | state/*.json | State files per target | | PAUSE | Emergency stop (create to pause) |

Related

• Email Agent ($GOOGLE_TOOLS_PATH/email_agent.py) - similar pattern
• Daily Briefing (future) - will include watcher alerts
• CRM Add/Update (future) - auto-create tasks on triggers
• Touch Scheduler (future) - schedule follow-ups

Owner

Your Name ([email protected])