Recursive Watch

sift watch add ~/Inbox --auto-apply --recursive

Recursive Watch shares the same eligibility rules and traversal boundaries as organize --recursive: each eligible subdirectory is organized in its own local context, and Sift never enters hidden entries, symlinks, protected software projects, known build/dependency directories, or its own category directories.

A subfolder’s own .sift.toml takes over live

If a subfolder has its own local .sift.toml, that config governs its own subtree — and this is hot-reloaded the same way the root’s own config is: editing a nested .sift.toml while the watch is running takes effect without restarting it. See Configuration Lookup.

Strategies that can’t go recursive

audio, video, photos, and documents can’t be used with --recursive — registering one is refused outright at watch add time. If a running watch’s .sift.toml is edited afterward to switch from a recursive-capable strategy (type/date) to one of these four while still set to recursive, Sift detects it and fails closed: the watch is suspended rather than left running with an unsupported combination. See Recursive Organization for why these four can’t safely support recursion at all.

Related

• Register and Start — the --recursive flag in the full add command.
• Strategies — which strategies support recursion.