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watchman

Watch files and trigger actions when they change

Automation & Workflows ★ 13.7k stars Medium setup MIT

Watchman is an open-source file watching service from Meta that records changes in a directory tree and triggers actions when files match configured patterns. It is self-hosted to power local automation workflows.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • File change watching
  • Trigger commands on changes
  • Efficient recursive watching
  • Query API

Strengths

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Mature project with 13.7k GitHub stars
  • Written in C++
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM

Is watchman secure?

OSV.dev has no published security advisories for watchman's repository. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

watchman replaces

Self-hosted fswatch alternatives

Health badge

Maintain watchman? Add its health score to your README. The badge links back to this page.

SelfHostIndex: 94 · excellent

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[![SelfHostIndex health score for watchman](https://selfhostindex.com/badge/actiontrigger-watchman.svg)](https://selfhostindex.com/app/actiontrigger-watchman/)
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<a href="https://selfhostindex.com/app/actiontrigger-watchman/"><img src="https://selfhostindex.com/badge/actiontrigger-watchman.svg" alt="SelfHostIndex health score for watchman"></a>
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.. image:: https://selfhostindex.com/badge/actiontrigger-watchman.svg
   :alt: SelfHostIndex health score for watchman
   :target: https://selfhostindex.com/app/actiontrigger-watchman/

The score is recomputed on every nightly rebuild from public repository data — see how it is calculated.

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