Watchmen Setup

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Installing watchmen for the first time on a laptop or workstation
• Wiring the watchmen plugin and statusline into Claude Code or Codex
• Verifying an existing watchmen install and fixing what doctor reports

Example prompts

• “Set up watchmen on this machine.”
• “I already installed watchmen, so run doctor and fix whatever it flags.”
• “Wire the watchmen plugin and statusline into Claude Code.”
• “Walk me through installing watchmen on a fresh laptop.”

Requirements

• uv, the Python package manager
• git, to clone the watchmen repository
• An API key or subscription for one LLM provider
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Bash(uname*), Bash(which*), Bash(command -v*), Bash(uv*), Bash(git clone*), Bash(watchmen*)

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

1. 1Install the CLI
2. 2Run the init wizard (interactive — hand off)
3. 3Wire the plugin into the agent (agent UI — hand off)
4. 4Verify

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit bbe763c. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Bash(uname*)
  • Bash(which*)
  • Bash(command -v*)
  • Bash(uv*)
  • Bash(git clone*)
  • Bash(watchmen*)

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • uv
  • git
  • curl
  • sh
  • brew

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

  • astral.sh

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Watchmen Setup loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 71 tokens; SKILL.md has 587 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~71

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.2k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

• NotePipes a well-known installer script into a shellSKILL.md:27

  and tell the user to install uv first (`curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh`, or `brew install uv`), then re

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from firstbatchxyz/watchmen at commit bbe763c, republished under its MIT licence (© firstbatchxyz). 587 words, ~1,157 tokens.

name

setup

description

Set up watchmen end-to-end for the current machine — install the CLI, run the init wizard, wire the plugin + statusline into Claude Code (and Codex), and verify the install with doctor. Use when someone wants to install, onboard, or configure watchmen with their coding agent.

allowed-tools

Bash(uname*), Bash(which*), Bash(command -v*), Bash(uv*), Bash(git clone*), Bash(watchmen*)

git clone https://github.com/firstbatchxyz/watchmen.git
cd watchmen
uv sync && uv tool install --editable .

watchmen init

/plugin marketplace add firstbatchxyz/watchmen
/plugin install watchmen@watchmen
/reload-plugins

watchmen statusline install

/plugins marketplace add github:firstbatchxyz/watchmen
/plugins install watchmen

© firstbatchxyz, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in plugin/skills/setup of firstbatchxyz/watchmen.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit bbe763c