Promethist Watchdog

Adding an app

Open the window and use Add. Most fields are self-explanatory, but two require advance attention.

Visibility determines if the program appears normally, minimized, hidden, or always on top. This last setting suits kiosks and signage that must stay in front of everything else, including Windows' own pop-ups.

Freeze detection requires more thought — what counts as frozen differs per program. The defaults suit a GUI app. See Crash and freeze detection.

To watch a server that runs somewhere else instead of a program on this PC, tick Only check a web address. See Watching a server by its web address.

Changes save as you make them. The app then appears live in the table; see Reading the table to interpret its numbers.

If you prefer editing the file directly, watchdog.example.yaml (installed alongside the program) provides a fully annotated configuration with two worked examples — a GUI app and a batch job.

From the command line

wdog app add kiosk --exe "C:\Kiosk\kiosk.exe" --arg=--kiosk --visibility on_top
wdog app set kiosk launch.args -- --profile prod --port 8080
wdog app remove kiosk

You need not memorize setting names: wdog app get kiosk --paths lists every one with its current value. See Command line.