Watch Directory — Continuous Filesystem Sync

Start a polling loop that detects filesystem changes and ingests them into Graphonomous.

Arguments

Required path and optional flags: $ARGUMENTS

<path>: directory to watch (required)
--interval <ms>: poll interval in milliseconds (default: 5000)
--extensions <list>: comma-separated extensions to watch (default: .ex,.exs,.ts,.js,.tsx,.md,.html,.css,.json,.svelte)

How It Works

Graphonomous has a built-in watch_directory feature that polls for file changes using snapshot diffing (size + mtime + content SHA256). This skill wires that into the Claude Code session.

Starting the Watcher

Note the target directory and configuration
Inform the user that watching is active
On each detected change, use /graphonomous:sync <changed_file_path> to ingest

Example — watch the graphonomous lib directory:

/graphonomous:watch graphonomous/lib/ --interval 3000

Example — watch with specific extensions:

/graphonomous:watch WebHost.Systems/src/ --extensions .ts,.tsx,.js

What Gets Watched

The watcher tracks:

Added files: new files matching the extension filter -> act(action: "store_node", ...)
Modified files: changed content (SHA256 differs) -> update existing node or store new
Removed files: deleted files -> optionally mark node confidence to 0.0

Watcher Configuration

Option	Default	Description
`path`	(required)	Root directory to watch
`interval`	5000ms	How often to check for changes
`extensions`	.ex,.exs,.ts,.js,.tsx,.md,.html,.css,.json,.svelte	File types to include
`recursive`	true	Watch subdirectories
`respect_gitignore`	true	Skip .gitignore'd files
`max_file_size`	1MB	Skip files larger than this

Important Notes

The watcher runs as a conceptual loop within the conversation — Claude checks for changes when prompted or between tasks
For true background watching, use Graphonomous's native CLI: graphonomous watch <path>
The watcher does NOT automatically run edge extraction (use /graphonomous:sync --full periodically for that)
Stop watching by saying "stop watching" or ending the session

Native CLI Alternative

For continuous background watching outside of Claude Code sessions:

cd graphonomous
mix run --no-halt -- watch /home/travis/ProjectAmp2 \
  --poll-interval-ms 5000 \
  --extensions .ex,.exs,.ts,.js,.tsx,.md,.html,.css,.json,.svelte \
  --ingest-on-start \
  --consolidation-cadence 100

This runs as a persistent process and is the recommended approach for always-on filesystem sync.

Anti-patterns to avoid

Don't set poll interval below 1000ms — excessive polling wastes resources
Don't watch node_modules, _build, deps, or .git directories
Don't expect real-time sub-second latency — this is polling-based, not inotify
Don't run multiple watchers on overlapping directories — you'll get duplicate nodes