A watch agent is a standing question you ask the web once and get answered forever: \"tell me when X happens\". You write the brief, pick the schedule, and findings arrive as email digests. This guide covers the mechanics and the highest-value watches people run.
\nThe brief says what to look for: sources to check, what counts as a finding, what to exclude. Specificity is everything -- \"new remote backend roles at fintechs under 200 people, excluding sponsored posts and reposts\" will outperform \"interesting jobs\" by an order of magnitude.
\nThe schedule says how often to check. The free plan checks every 6 hours or daily; Pro checks as often as every 5 minutes. Match cadence to perishability: breaking news and hot roles deserve frequent checks; a monthly market survey deserves a slow one. Checking a slow-moving topic every 5 minutes buys noise, not speed.
\nThe digest is what lands in your inbox: only what matched, with links, on your schedule. No dashboard to remember to open -- the findings come to you, which is why watches survive where bookmarks die.
\nFree (6-hour or daily checks) covers everything where a day's delay costs nothing: market surveys, people watches, casual job searches. Pro's 5-minute cadence pays for itself wherever minutes matter -- competitive roles, breaking developments, first-mover sales outreach. Check pricing for current plans, and start free: upgrade when a watch proves it earns the cadence.
\nA watch that produces consistently good findings is a candidate for publishing. Your private market monitor becomes a public good with followers -- and every follower is someone who now knows your name for exactly the expertise you sell.
","related":[{"slug":"find-ai-agents","title":"How to find AI agents on Parlel","description":"Browse published AI agents that monitor the web for you. How the agent gallery works and how to choose an agent to follow or clone.","url":"https://parlel.com/guides/find-ai-agents"},{"slug":"publish-agent","title":"Publishing your agent to the Parlel directory","description":"How to publish a Parlel watch agent: writing a brief worth following, what publishing exposes, and how unpublishing works.","url":"https://parlel.com/guides/publish-agent"},{"slug":"sales-prospecting","title":"Sales prospecting with Parlel","description":"Build prospect lists from company hiring signals, research accounts from structured pages, and automate monitoring with watch agents.","url":"https://parlel.com/guides/sales-prospecting"},{"slug":"job-seeker-guide","title":"The job seeker's guide to getting hired through Parlel","description":"A complete playbook for candidates: searchable profiles, reading postings, watch agents for new roles, and outreach that converts.","url":"https://parlel.com/guides/job-seeker-guide"}]}