/watch-channel - put a nightly watcher on a channel with one command

🧒 End the report to a non-technical owner with a simple "In plain words" recap (memory eli5-always).

This is the "turn /mine-channel into a nightly routine" button (its Step 5, "should this become a routine?"). One parametric runner + a registry + ONE nightly job on the hub - we do NOT write a new engine per channel. Cost ladder [[vault-data-architecture]]: the incremental detector (0 tokens) at night → the LLM judge ONLY on demand (/alpha-judge), NEVER in cron.

Boundary vs neighbors: /mine-channel = a one-off mine (full scrape + judge + vault). /watch-channel = put it on nightly autopilot (incremental + detector → a private report; the judge stays manual). /chat = find the channel id.

Steps

0. RECALL (don't duplicate). Is the channel already watched? Read $IMPORTS_ROOT/watchers/watchers.json - if the slug is there and active:true, it already works (tell the owner, don't spawn a second one). Legacy per-community watchers have their own engines and do NOT go through this registry.

1. Resolve the channel → id + slug. A username (@prompt_design) or a numeric id. Don't know the id - /chat <name> or mcp__telegram__search_dialogs. Pick a short latin slug (it doubles as the folder _imports\alpha\<slug>).

2. Confirmation fork (show BEFORE→AFTER, wait for +). Ask/confirm 3 things, because there are non-trivial choices here (this is not a "blind yes", [[informed-consent-explain-why]]):

• the account session - which Telegram account we read as (that account must be subscribed / have access to the channel). Default TELEGRAM_SESSION_STRING_WORK_ACCT_A. ⚠️ AuthKey invariant ([[deterministic-script-gotchas]]): the watchers' session must NOT be used simultaneously by a live MCP from another IP - Telegram will invalidate the key. All watchers run sequentially on the HUB under one session - that is safe; but if the chosen account is the one holding a live listener, pick a dedicated ..._WATCH session instead.
• sensitivity - a closed/delicate channel → sensitivity:"private" (anti-leak on the OUTPUT side - the report never goes outbound/public, [[telegram-safety]]).
• window/top - window_days (default 3), top (default 25).

3. Register it. Append an object to watchers.json → watchers[] (fields are described in the file's _fields), active:true. That is all the "code" a new channel needs - you do NOT create a new scheduler task (one shared task runs the whole registry).

4. Create/verify the nightly task - ON THE HUB ([[hub-master-machine]], [[desktop-max-laptop-min]]; night window [[routines-run-at-night]]). All automatic Telegram jobs are consolidated on the always-on hub. If WatchChannelsNightly does not exist yet - create it there (via a _machine-bus task to the hub, [[machine-bus-telegram-rail]]):

• command: watch_run.cmd → python $IMPORTS_ROOT/watchers/watch_run.py (PYTHONUTF8=1, PYTHONIOENCODING=utf-8, log in _watch_run_log.txt);
• a slot inside the night window, spaced apart from the other nightly miners (03:30 / 04:15 / voice) - e.g. 04:45;
• _imports is NOT synced → stage the engine into _machine-bus\_transit\_imports-engines\watchers\ and ask the hub to copy it. If the task already exists - the registry simply got updated, and the new channel is picked up the next night.

5. Prove it (/tt) while the session is alive. One-off run of a single channel: python $IMPORTS_ROOT/watchers/watch_run.py <slug> → check that _imports\alpha\candidates\<slug>-report.md appeared and the counter says +N new. A repeat run = +0 (idempotent). ⚠️ Check the report's CONTENT too, not just the counters: it must contain clickable t.me/... links (for that the registry entry needs the username field - without it detect() only gets a numeric id and writes no links; this pitfall was caught 2026-07-04). On a laptop with a dead/foreign session skip the live test - the first run happens on the hub.

Management

• list: read watchers.json (or /arch).
• remove/pause: active:false (don't delete - the history and the db stay).
• reports: _imports\alpha\candidates\<slug>-report.md (overwritten nightly, the latest one is the fresh one). Want it in the vault - run /alpha-judge or Step 4 of /mine-channel (judge → atomic notes + concept links).

Boundaries

READING the channel only, never send anything into it. The detector is generic (KW/PROMO/BANTER in mine_channel.py); per-channel tuning happens there too. Sensitive channels → #private, never outbound. The judge (LLM) - ON DEMAND ONLY, never in the nightly cron (token economy).

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