Watch Xch Price

Watch XCH price

You are watching the XCH spot price and notifying when it crosses a configured threshold. Price comes from chia-explorer's CoinGecko-backed tool. Read-only. Schedulable.

This skill follows the conventions in this repo's SKILLS.md. Read that if anything below is unclear.

Required capabilities

• chia-explorer (mcp__chia-explorer__*) — mandatory.
• A notification MCP — pick whichever is installed. If none, fall back to ~/.chia-skills/alerts/.

Resolve inputs

You need: $threshold, $currency, $direction, $channel.

• $threshold — a numeric price target. Required.
• $currency — three-letter currency code (e.g. usd, eur, gbp, btc, sats). Default usd. Lowercase.
• $direction — one of above (alert when price ≥ threshold), below (alert when price ≤ threshold), cross (alert on either-side crossing of the threshold). Default cross.
• $channel — notification channel, default auto.

Resolve: arguments → context → ask user.

Validate:

• $threshold must be a positive number.
• $currency must match a CoinGecko-supported code. If the chia-explorer price tool returns an error for the code, surface it.
• $direction must be one of the three values above. Anything else → ask the user to clarify.

Load or initialise state

State file: ~/.chia-skills/state/watch-xch-price__<currency>_<threshold>_<direction>.json.

Shape:

{
  "threshold": 50.0,
  "currency": "usd",
  "direction": "cross",
  "last_price": 47.32,
  "last_check_iso": "2026-05-19T14:33:00Z",
  "last_alerted_at": null,
  "skill_version": "0.1.0"
}

On first run: fetch current price, record it as last_price, save state, emit STATUS: success, EVENTS: 0 with a message like "price watch started at $47.32 — will alert on threshold". Don't fire an alert on first run even if the price already satisfies the condition; the user just set this watch up.

Check the price

Fetch current XCH price in $currency via chia-explorer's price tool.

Decide whether to alert

Compute crossing logic:

• direction = above → alert if last_price < $threshold and current_price >= $threshold.
• direction = below → alert if last_price > $threshold and current_price <= $threshold.
• direction = cross → alert if either of the above is true.

Apply a small debounce: if last_alerted_at is within the last 60 minutes, suppress duplicate alerts. This stops "flickering" when the price hovers exactly on the threshold.

If no crossing happened, this is a no_change run.

Compose the notification

XCH crossed $50.00 (USD)

  Now:        $50.42
  Previous:   $47.32
  Threshold:  $50.00 (above)
  Move:       +6.6% since last check

  Not advice — just a heads-up.

For non-fiat currencies (BTC, sats), format appropriately: 5 decimals for BTC, integer for sats.

Add the "Not advice" line to every message. The skill is not a trading bot.

Send the notification

Pick a channel by priority (same as other watch skills). Fall back to ~/.chia-skills/alerts/ if none available.

Update state

Update last_price, last_check_iso, and (if alert fired) last_alerted_at. Write state atomically.

If the alert channel failed, still update last_price and last_check_iso to keep the price tracker current, but don't update last_alerted_at. Next scheduled run will retry the alert if the condition still holds (and debounce permits).

Scheduling

This skill is one-shot. Wire to:

• schedule skill / cron — every 15 minutes is plenty for price alerts. Don't poll faster than every minute (CoinGecko free tier rate limits).
• /loop — fine for short windows ("watch through the close").

Hard rules

• No advice. Report the price; don't recommend buy/sell.
• No retroactive alerts on first run. Record current price and start fresh.
• Debounce 60 minutes to avoid flicker alerts.
• Respect CoinGecko rate limits. Don't poll faster than 1/minute without an API key.

Recovery patterns

• CoinGecko 429 / rate-limited. Don't update state. Emit STATUS: failed, REASON: price API rate-limited. Next scheduled run picks up.
• CoinGecko returns weird value (negative, zero, NaN). Treat as a transient error; don't update state; emit STATUS: failed.
• State file says we already alerted today within debounce window. Suppress alert, emit STATUS: no_change, REASON: debounced.

Output

STATUS: success | no_change | partial | failed | aborted
ALERTED: true | false
PRICE: <current price formatted>
CURRENCY: <code>
THRESHOLD: <threshold>
DIRECTION: above | below | cross
CHANNEL: <channel used> | inline | none
ARTIFACT: <path to inline alert file> | none
REASON: <one line, only when STATUS is failed, partial, or aborted, or when no_change is due to debounce>