Monitor Kalshi

${var} — Event ticker to monitor (e.g. "KXGDP-26Q2"). If empty, reads the watchlist from skills/monitor-kalshi/watchlist.md.

Read memory/MEMORY.md for context.
Read the last 2 days of memory/logs/ to compare against previous readings and flag new movers (not repeats of yesterday's news).

Why this skill exists

A table of prices isn't useful. An operator reading this notification wants to answer: "is there a market worth forming a view on right now, and why?" Every rule below exists to push output toward that question — the skill suppresses noise, ranks by decision value, and demands one line of reasoning per alert.

Watchlist

The default watchlist lives at skills/monitor-kalshi/watchlist.md. Each line is an event ticker. Add or remove tickers to change what gets monitored.

If ${var} is set, monitor only that single event (useful for ad-hoc checks).

API Reference

Base URL: https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2

Despite the "elections" subdomain, this provides access to ALL Kalshi markets (economics, climate, tech, politics, etc.). All endpoints below are public — no auth required.

Steps

1. Load watchlist

if [ -n "${var}" ]; then
  TICKERS="${var}"
else
  TICKERS=$(grep -v '^#' skills/monitor-kalshi/watchlist.md | grep -v '^$')
fi

If the watchlist is empty and no ${var} is set, emit MONITOR_KALSHI_NO_CONFIG, notify with a one-line setup hint, and discover trending events for this run only:

curl -s "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/events?status=open&with_nested_markets=true&limit=10"

Pick the 5 highest-volume events and monitor those.

2. For each event, fetch markets, prices, and liquidity

For each event ticker:

a) Event + markets:

curl -s "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/events/$EVENT_TICKER?with_nested_markets=true"

Fields used: event_ticker, title, category, mutually_exclusive, markets[] with ticker, title, subtitle, status, yes_bid, yes_ask, last_price, volume, volume_24h, open_interest, close_time, series_ticker.

Skip non-open markets (closed/settled are historical).

b) 24h candlesticks (batch where possible):
Prefer the batch endpoint — one call per event, not per market:

END_TS=$(date -u +%s)
START_TS=$((END_TS - 86400))
# Batch: up to 10,000 candlesticks total across requested tickers
curl -s "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/markets/candlesticks?tickers=$COMMA_SEP_MARKET_TICKERS&start_ts=$START_TS&end_ts=$END_TS&period_interval=60"

If the batch endpoint errors, fall back to the per-market endpoint:

curl -s "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/series/$SERIES_TICKER/markets/$MARKET_TICKER/candlesticks?start_ts=$START_TS&end_ts=$END_TS&period_interval=60"

If both fail for a market, mark its source as SRC=price_only and use last_price vs yesterday's log entry.

c) Orderbook depth (liquidity / conviction signal):

curl -s "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/markets/$MARKET_TICKER/orderbook?depth=10"

From the orderbook, compute:

• spread_pp = yes_ask − yes_bid in percentage points. Wide spread = low conviction, thin book.
• depth_usd = sum over top-10 bid levels of price × size (approximation, both sides). This scales how much weight to give a price.

If orderbook fails, mark SRC=no_book and skip the conviction column for that market.

3. Compute per-market signals

For each open market:

• implied_prob = last_price as a percentage (0.62 → 62%). Report this, not cents.
• chg_pp = close − open from candlesticks, in percentage points.
• high / low = intraday range.
• vol_24h_usd ≈ volume_24h × avg(open, close) (Kalshi reports contract count — convert so readers can compare across markets).
• spread_pp and depth_usd from step 2c.
• move_score = |chg_pp| × log10(max(vol_24h_usd, 100)). This is the key ranking signal — a 3pp move on a $200k market outranks a 5pp move on a $5k market. It prevents thin-book noise from dominating.

Direction label (from chg_pp): surging (>+5pp), rising (+2 to +5), stable (−2 to +2), falling (−5 to −2), crashing (<−5).

Conviction label (from spread_pp): tight (<2pp), loose (2–5pp), thin (>5pp, treat price skeptically).

4. Decide what's worth saying — suppression rules

Before building the report, drop markets that fail ALL of these gates:

• |chg_pp| >= 2 AND vol_24h_usd >= $1,000, OR
• vol_24h_usd >= $25,000 (large volume alone is signal even if price didn't move much), OR
• open_interest grew >30% vs yesterday's log, if yesterday's log has the data.

If a market appeared in yesterday's log with the same direction and a chg_pp within ±1pp of today's, treat it as "continued from yesterday" and demote it — mention once at the event level, don't re-alert.

Hard alert threshold: |chg_pp| >= 5 AND conviction != thin. These go to the ALERTS block and require a "why it matters" line.

5. Global ranking

Rank events by the max move_score of any market within them. Cap the report at the top 5 events. Markets within an event are listed in descending move_score order, capped at 3 per event (mention "+N more" if truncated).

6. Build the report

*Kalshi monitor — ${today}*
verdict: [1 sentence — dominant theme or "all quiet"]

**[Event Title]** (EVENT_TICKER) — category
| Market | prob | Δ24h | range | vol | spread |
|--------|------|------|-------|-----|--------|
| [title] | 62% | +4.1pp ▲ | 56–65% | $82k | 1pp |
| [title] | 23% | −2.8pp ▼ | 22–28% | $14k | 3pp |
mover: [title] — rising on $82k vol, tight book

[next event ...]

**ALERTS** (moved >5pp on non-thin book)
- [event/market]: 34% → 51% — *why it matters:* [one sentence grounded in the move's volume, spread, or news context if obvious from titles]
- ...

**Trending (not tracked)**
- [event] — $Xk 24h vol, consider adding
- ...

sources: events=ok candlesticks=ok|degraded|fail orderbook=ok|degraded|fail

Rules for the verdict line:

• If no alerts AND no market moved >2pp: say "all quiet — [N] events, [M] markets tracked, no moves worth flagging".
• If one theme dominates (most big moves in one category): name it. E.g. "GDP markets repriced down after Q1 print; inflation markets unchanged".
• Never hedge. If you're not sure, say "mixed signals" and stop.

Rules for "why it matters":

• Must reference at least one of: volume (is this real money?), spread (is this consensus?), prior log state (is this new?), or a plausible news trigger inferable from the market title.
• Max 15 words. No filler like "interesting move" or "worth watching".

7. Discover notable trends

curl -s "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/events?status=open&with_nested_markets=true&limit=50"

Scan for events with high volume_24h (top 10) whose tickers are not in the watchlist. Mention 1–2 in the "Trending (not tracked)" block, only if their 24h volume exceeds the median volume of tracked events.

8. Notify

Send via ./notify (under 4000 chars). If the report exceeds the budget, drop the "Trending" block first, then truncate events from the bottom of the ranked list.

9. Log

Append to memory/logs/${today}.md:

## Monitor Kalshi
- **Events monitored:** N (watchlist=W, discovered=D)
- **Markets tracked:** N (M open, K skipped)
- **Top mover:** "[title]" — X% → Y% (Δpp, move_score=S, vol=$V, spread=Sp)
- **Alerts (>5pp, non-thin):** [count; list titles or "none"]
- **Continued-from-yesterday (demoted):** [count]
- **Trending untracked:** [1–2 tickers or "none"]
- **Sources:** events=[status] candlesticks=[status] orderbook=[status]
- **Status:** MONITOR_KALSHI_OK | MONITOR_KALSHI_DEGRADED | MONITOR_KALSHI_NO_CONFIG | MONITOR_KALSHI_ERROR

If a market moved dramatically (>10pp on non-thin book) or a new category is heating up across multiple events, add a one-line note in memory/MEMORY.md under a "Kalshi signals" section for future reference.

Status codes (end-of-run)

• MONITOR_KALSHI_OK — ran fully, had data, at least one event processed.
• MONITOR_KALSHI_DEGRADED — partial data (some markets fell back to price_only or no_book); report still sent.
• MONITOR_KALSHI_NO_CONFIG — empty watchlist and no ${var}; discovered trending events and notified with setup hint.
• MONITOR_KALSHI_ERROR — events endpoint failed entirely or zero markets resolved; notify with the failure, don't fake a report.

Sandbox note

The sandbox may block outbound curl. Use WebFetch as a fallback for any URL fetch:

• WebFetch("https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/events/EVENT_TICKER?with_nested_markets=true")
• WebFetch("https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/markets/candlesticks?tickers=...&start_ts=...&end_ts=...&period_interval=60")
• WebFetch("https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/markets/MARKET_TICKER/orderbook?depth=10")
• All Kalshi endpoints are public and need no auth headers.