Watch tx confirmation

Watch a transaction confirmation

You are watching a specific Chia tx_id (spend bundle name) and notifying when it lands on-chain — or when it evicts without confirming. Stripe-webhook feel for self-custody. Read-only.

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 (email, push, chat, webhook). If none, write to ~/.chia-skills/alerts/ and surface inline.
• Bash + Read + Write — state file management.

Resolve inputs

You need: $tx_id, $channel, $timeout_minutes.

• $tx_id — the spend bundle name as 0x... hex (32 bytes / 64 hex chars). Required.
• $channel — email, push, slack, discord, telegram, webhook, or auto (default).
• $timeout_minutes — give up watching after this many minutes if neither confirmed nor evicted. Default 120 (two hours, comfortably beyond Chia's mempool TTL).

Resolve: arguments → context → ask user. If $tx_id is missing after asking, emit STATUS: aborted, REASON: missing required inputs.

Validate $tx_id:

• Must be 32 bytes hex, with or without leading 0x. Anything else → STATUS: failed, REASON: invalid tx_id.

Load or initialise state

State file: ~/.chia-skills/state/watch-tx-confirmation__<tx_id_no_prefix>.json.

Shape:

{
  "tx_id": "0x...",
  "first_seen_iso": "2026-05-19T14:33:00Z",
  "first_seen_height": 6532109,
  "last_state": "pending" | "confirmed" | "evicted" | "unseen",
  "confirmed_height": null,
  "skill_version": "0.1.0"
}

On first run: record first_seen_iso = now, first_seen_height = current peak, last_state = unseen, write state. (Continue to the check below — first run still does work.)

Check status

Use chia-explorer to determine the current state of the tx_id in this priority:

1. Is it in the mempool right now? If yes → state is pending.
2. Was it confirmed on-chain? Walk recent blocks since first_seen_height looking for a spend bundle whose name matches $tx_id. Stop at peak. If found → state is confirmed and record the height.
3. Otherwise → state is either unseen (never observed) or evicted (was pending earlier, no longer in mempool, not confirmed).
   • If last_state was pending and it's no longer in the mempool and not confirmed → evicted.
   • If last_state was unseen and it's still nowhere → still unseen.

If (now - first_seen_iso) > $timeout_minutes and state is still unseen or pending → treat as timed out.

Decide whether to notify

Notify only on a state transition (the whole point of being schedulable):

Previous state	New state	Notify?
any	confirmed (first time)	yes
pending	evicted	yes
unseen	pending	optional — only if the user asked to know when it hit the mempool
unseen	unseen	no
pending	pending	no
any	timed out	yes (one-shot)

Default behaviour: only notify on confirmed, evicted, or timed out. Mention "still pending" in the run output but don't send a push.

Compose the notification

Confirmed example:

Chia tx confirmed: 0xdead...beef
  Block height: 6,532,210
  Time to confirm: ~12 minutes
  See: https://www.spacescan.io/spend-bundle/0xdeadbeef...   (if you want to link)

Evicted example:

Chia tx evicted from mempool: 0xdead...beef
  Was pending since: 2026-05-19 14:33 UTC
  Likely cause: fee too low for inclusion. Rebroadcast with a higher fee.

Timed out example:

Chia tx watch timed out: 0xdead...beef
  Last state: unseen
  Watched for: 120 minutes
  Action: it may have never been broadcast — check your wallet.

Use chia-explorer's puzzle-classification on at least one spend in the bundle (if confirmed) to enrich the message: "This was a take_offer for X CAT" or "This was a plain XCH send".

Send the notification

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

Update state

After successful notify (or fallback write), update last_state and, for confirmed, confirmed_height. Write state atomically.

If new state is terminal (confirmed, evicted, timed out), this watch is done. Tell the user to remove the schedule entry for this tx_id — terminal state means future scheduled runs are wasted work. Emit a TERMINAL: true field in the output block to make this obvious.

Scheduling

This skill is one-shot. Wire to:

• schedule skill / cron — every minute or two for short waits, every 5–10 minutes for longer.
• /loop skill — handy if the user wants to babysit a single tx ("I'll wait while it confirms").

Hard rules

• Read-only. Never re-broadcast, never re-sign. If the tx evicted, the user re-broadcasts from their wallet with a higher fee.
• No retroactive notifications. First-run state recording is the baseline.
• Notify on transitions only. Don't spam the user with a "still pending" alert every minute.

Recovery patterns

• chia-explorer call fails. Don't update state. Emit STATUS: failed. Next scheduled run resumes.
• State file says confirmed already. Skill exits immediately with STATUS: no_change, TERMINAL: true. Tells the user the schedule is stale.

Output

STATUS: success | no_change | partial | failed | aborted
STATE: pending | confirmed | evicted | timed_out | unseen
CONFIRMED_HEIGHT: <int> | none
CHANNEL: <channel used> | inline | none
TERMINAL: true | false
TX_ID: <full tx_id>
ARTIFACT: <path to inline alert file> | none
REASON: <one line, only when STATUS is failed, partial, or aborted>