[role="xpack"]
[[managing-watches]]
== Managing watches

{watcher} provides as set of APIs you can use to manage your watches:

* Use the <<watcher-api-put-watch,put watch API>> to add or update watches
* Use the <<watcher-api-get-watch,get watch API>> to retrieve watches
* Use the <<watcher-api-delete-watch,delete watch API>> to delete watches
* Use the <<watcher-api-activate-watch,activate watch API>> to activate watches
* Use the <<watcher-api-deactivate-watch,deactivate watch API>> to deactivate watches
* Use the <<watcher-api-ack-watch,ack watch API>> to acknowledge watches

[discrete]
[[listing-watches]]
=== Listing watches

Currently there is not dedicated API for listing the stored watches. However,
since {watcher} stores its watches in the `.watches` index, you can list them
by executing a search on this index.

IMPORTANT:	You can only perform read actions on the `.watches` index. You must
            use the {watcher} APIs to create, update, and delete watches. If {es}
            {security-features} are enabled, we recommend you only grant users
            `read` privileges on the `.watches` index.

For example, the following returns the first 100 watches:

[source,console]
--------------------------------------------------
GET .watches/_search
{
  "size" : 100
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TEST[skip:deprecation warning]