How to use Watchnet

1. Start a workspace

Why it helps: All company intelligence stays organized in an account-specific workspace.

1. Create an account, verify your email and accept the beta terms.
2. Open Companies and add a public HTTPS website and an optional X handle.
3. Set priority: High for direct threats, Medium for relevant alternatives, Low for background watching.
4. Open a company name to view its dedicated profile.

2. Teach AI your business goals

Why it helps: The same competitor launch may require very different actions for a startup, an enterprise seller, or a product team.

1. Go to Settings → Your business strategy. Describe your offer, target buyers, differentiation and current business goals.
2. Open Companies → Edit to set a strategic goal and monitored topics for each competitor.
3. Be specific: “Defend enterprise deals against discounting” works better than “track competitors.”
4. Save your goals before running new AI analyses. Existing reports remain historical; new analysis uses your latest context.

3. Website monitoring

Why it helps: Public changes to company websites can flag new positioning, pricing, launches or partnerships.

1. In Companies, click Website (Scan now) to retrieve a public homepage. The first scan creates a baseline.
2. The next successful scan compares readable text with the baseline and stores only substantive text changes.
3. Open company profile → Website scan history for retrieval status and failure reasons.
4. A missing change is not proof that the company did nothing; JavaScript-only pages, inaccessible sites and unsampled pages can be missed.
5. The “Pages” setting is a planning estimate; the current scanner checks the homepage only.

4. X monitoring and publication times

Why it helps: Competitor accounts may announce updates before their websites reflect them.

1. Add the exact public X username in Companies.
2. Click X posts to retrieve recent accessible posts using your provider-backed API access.
3. Open the company profile → X publication timeline. Times reflect when X reports publication, converted to your selected time zone.
4. Posting frequency counts stored public posts, not impressions, sentiment or unseen posts.
5. If the API cannot reach the account or your plan lacks access, the scan returns an error; no posts are invented.

5. Generate strategic recommendations

Why it helps: An event becomes useful when Watchnet ties it to your market goals and proposes a next-best response.

1. Scan the website and/or X. AI analyzes newly detected changes and selected new posts when configured.
2. Use AI on a company to analyze its current website baseline on demand.
3. Open Intelligence or the company profile → Next-best actions.
4. ACT NOW means the evidence is specific, relevant and time-sensitive; WATCH means verify or monitor; NO ACTION means nothing warrants action yet.
5. Each recommendation includes why it matters, what to do next and an original source link. Verify consequential claims before taking action.

6. Company profiles and trend charts

Why it helps: Company pages keep context, evidence, actions and behavior trends in one place.

1. From Companies, click the company name.
2. Review the two 14-day charts: number of observed website text changes and stored X posts by publication day.
3. Read action cards, the X timeline and website scan history.
4. If a chart is empty, confirm monitoring actually ran and check its technical results.

7. The Intelligence feed

Why it helps: Separates events from recommendations and reduces alert fatigue.

1. Open Intelligence in the sidebar.
2. Filter by Everything, Act now, Watch, No action needed or Raw evidence.
3. Open the linked company profile for its context.
4. Check the source URL for the original evidence; AI inferences are not independently confirmed facts.

8. Email briefings

Why it helps: Get a practical summary of what changed and what to do, without searching every company page.

1. Go to Briefings, choose daily and/or weekly, set time and IANA time zone, then Save preferences.
2. Click Send test briefing to verify Resend delivery.
3. Daily schedules summarize the previous calendar day; weekly schedules run Monday for the prior seven days in your selected zone.
4. Subjects highlight the highest-priority justified action; when nothing demands action the email says so clearly.
5. Automated delivery requires the scheduled worker and confirmed provider configuration. Provider acceptance does not guarantee inbox delivery.

9. Credits, budgets and usage

Why it helps: Third-party AI, X and email requests can cost real money.

1. Open Usage to see balance, projections and ledger entries.
2. Successful webpage retrievals currently cost one credit for ordinary workspaces; owner-unlimited workspaces have no credit deduction.
3. AI, X and email usage reserves credits before calling providers. Pending charges may need reconciliation if a provider response is ambiguous.
4. X cost guard values are estimates: verify actual charges and spending limits in your X Developer Console.
5. Credit checkout remains restricted until commercial and legal approvals are complete.

10. Automated monitoring

Why it helps: Scheduled scans maintain continuity when you are offline.

1. Save a scan frequency and set the company Active.
2. The owner configures CRON_SECRET in Vercel and matching scheduler secrets in GitHub Actions.
3. The job runs periodically and processes a limited number of due accounts per invocation.
4. Check Monitoring and company scan history for errors. An Active setting does not guarantee that the scheduler is enabled.

11. Submit and track bugs or feature requests

Why it helps: Beta feedback should enter a tracked queue instead of disappearing into email.

1. Open Feedback & support. Choose Bug, Suggestion or General.
2. Explain the steps to reproduce, expected behavior and what happened.
3. Submit; the report is saved with a reference ID and appears in your recent reports.
4. Administrators can update status from Admin → Customer reports. Notifications also require WATCHNET_SUPPORT_EMAIL.
5. Never paste passwords, API tokens, customer secrets or other sensitive content.

12. Privacy and data controls

Why it helps: Your company priorities and strategic context should remain restricted to your workspace.

1. Go to Privacy & data to export available account and workspace records.
2. Submit an access, correction or deletion request, which enters the staff review queue.
3. Deletion is not automatic; staff verify identity, obligations and retention first.
4. Review Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy and AI Disclaimer in Legal.

13. Billing and payments

Why it helps: Plan spend before enabling commercial use.

1. Usage shows your balance and planned scan credits.
2. Payment checkout should remain in test mode until legal, security and processor approval.
3. Contact support for refund or charge questions; a quote or forecast is not a guarantee of third-party cost.

14. Troubleshoot common problems

Why it helps: Quickly distinguish configuration, provider permissions and source-site issues.

1. Scan failed: read the result; check public URL, DNS, TLS, site restrictions and robots rules.
2. No AI advice: verify OPENAI_API_KEY, model access, credit budget and migration 006.
3. No X posts: verify handle, bearer token, API access, cost guards and most recent X scan result.
4. No email: confirm domain verification, RESEND_API_KEY, WATCHNET_FROM_EMAIL, schedule preferences and worker.
5. Company save fails after update: verify the latest numbered Supabase migration was applied.
6. Admin alerts missing: set WATCHNET_SUPPORT_EMAIL to a real receiving address, and verify the notification queue.

Beta limitations & responsible use

Watchnet uses the official X API and public website retrieval. It cannot inspect private accounts, bypass access restrictions, reconstruct missed historical posts, or guarantee complete market coverage. Its advice is AI-generated and not a substitute for legal or professional judgment. Data processing and all external provider access require lawful permissions and their applicable terms.

Before public commercial launch, complete a legal and security review and finalize operator identity, contact details, data retention, X licensing, billing compliance and incident response.