Getting Started

Three pages take a fresh install from nothing to a live dashboard. Follow them in order: each one ends with the values the next one needs. Budget about ten minutes.

Before you start

You need	Details
A Discord server you administrate	You have to invite a bot and read three IDs from it. Being a plain member is not enough.
A reachable Plex or Jellyfin server	Reachable from wherever MediaWatch runs, by IP or hostname, not through plex.tv.
Docker, or Python 3.12	Docker Compose is the recommended way. A local run needs Python 3.12; the image is built on python:3.12-slim.

MediaWatch monitors one platform per deployment. Decide now whether this install watches Plex or Jellyfin: the credentials you collect and the value of media_server.type follow from that. Running both means running two containers with two data/ directories and two Discord channels.

Optional extras

Tautulli (Plex only) adds stream details and statistics, SABnzbd a download queue block, and Uptime Kuma uptime history on the offline dashboard. All three are optional and none of them is needed to get a first dashboard on screen. Skip them for now. You can add them later without a reinstall.

The three steps

1. Discord bot: create the application, copy the token, enable the one intent MediaWatch needs, invite the bot with five permissions, and collect the three Discord IDs.
2. Media server: get your Plex token or your Jellyfin API key, and the URL the bot will reach the server on.
3. First run: write .env and data/config.yaml, set media_server.type, start the bot, and confirm it worked from the log.

After that, pick how you want to run it permanently: Docker or locally.

Upgrading an existing PlexWatch 1.x install instead of starting fresh? Read Upgrading from 1.x first: some of the steps below are already done for you, and DISCORD_GUILD_ID is a new requirement.