Register and Start

Register

sift watch add ~/Inbox --auto-apply

• --auto-apply is required — explicit, persistent authorization for this watch to mutate the folder automatically once it’s running. There’s no way to register a watch that auto-organizes without it.
• --recursive organizes eligible subdirectories in place too, with the same boundaries as organize --recursive (see Recursive Watch). Omit it for a non-recursive watch.

A newly registered watch starts in the stopped state — registering never starts monitoring by itself, and never touches pre-existing files.

add
 ↓
stopped
 ↓ start
running
 ↕
pause / resume
 ↓ stop
stopped

Start

sift watch start ~/Inbox

Starts monitoring. It does not back-fill files that already existed in the folder before this — Watch only reacts to filesystem events from the moment it starts. If you want the existing contents organized first:

sift organize ~/Inbox --apply
sift watch start ~/Inbox

start also tries, best-effort and silently, to launch the optional tray app if it’s installed and not already running — see Auto-launch Behavior.

start only returns success once the daemon has actually confirmed it’s monitoring the root — see Lifecycle Guarantees.

Listing and inspecting

sift watch list
sift watch status ~/Inbox

status with no path shows every watch plus the daemon’s own status.

Related

• Pause, Resume and Stop — the rest of the lifecycle, including removal.
• Stability Window — how long a new file sits before Watch acts on it.