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The Watcher Couldn't See Moves

One-line fix: macOS calls file moves 'Renamed', not 'Created', so the watcher was missing everything I dragged into Published/.

1 min readEvergreen3:15pmMiami Beach, FL, USA
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Here's a fun one.

The watcher I built could only see brand-new files. If I dragged an existing file from one folder into Published/ — the watcher didn't notice. Silence. No save. Nothing on the website.

What happened

macOS is very precise about how it describes file changes. When you move a file, it doesn't call that a "created" event. It calls it a "renamed" event. Makes sense if you squint — the file moved, so its path got a new name.

The watcher was only listening for "created" events, so moves were invisible.

One line added: also listen for "renamed" events. Done.

Why

Discovered this when I dragged a file into Published/ and nothing happened. Checked the watcher logs, saw nothing. Classic case of the tool working exactly as documented — I just hadn't read the right part.

Embarrassingly simple fix. About five minutes to understand, thirty seconds to write.


PR: https://github.com/StevieIsmagic/stevie-second-brain/pull/2

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