[[managing-watches]]
== Managing Watches

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

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

[float]
[[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
            {security} is enabled, we recommend you only grant users `read`
            privileges on the `.watches` index.

For example, the following returns the first 100 watches:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
GET .watches/_search
{
  "size" : 100
}
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST[setup:my_active_watch]