Technical SEO monitoring for crawl, index, and link recovery checks.

Technical watch packages the recurring checks a site needs after the first baseline. It combines crawl changes, sampled Google index evidence, and link recovery without hiding quota limits or failed checks.

Run this report from the CLI, an MCP client, or application code. Every surface uses the same report definition and returns the same evidence. JSON is the source of truth; Markdown makes it readable without hiding dates, limits, warnings, or skipped work.

What this report helps you decide

Did important technical or indexed-state evidence regress since the last monitoring run?

A scheduled technical check needs crawl and URL Inspection evidence in one workflow.
The crawl scope, sitemap, and quota are intentionally limited.

Command facts

Report id: technical-watch
Execution: Local process
Outputs: JSON and Markdown
Example parameters: site, startUrl, sitemaps, limit, dailyLimit, inspectLimit, recoverLinks
Agent discovery: seo reports describe technical-watch --json
Interactive prompts: Human CLI commands only

When this report is not the right tool

These cases need a different report, more evidence, or a human decision. Do not force this report to answer a question its data cannot support.

The site has no comparable crawl or URL Inspection baseline yet. Recommended report: Crawl a site for technical SEO issues. Run a site crawl first to capture current live technical evidence and save the baseline. Technical watch needs comparable prior evidence to call something a regression or recovery.
You need exact Google indexed-state evidence for a small list of important URLs rather than combined monitoring. Recommended report: Review Google index changes. Run index watch with the selected URLs. It compares exact URL Inspection snapshot fields and separates current issues, regressions, recoveries, unchanged results, and provider failures. The result remains a quota-limited Google snapshot rather than a live fetch.

Data sources and inputs

Current and previous limited crawl evidence. Provides live technical and page changes for the selected same-origin scope.
Sitemap inventory and URL Inspection snapshots. Provides a quota-limited sample of Google indexed-state evidence and prior snapshots.
Optional link-recovery evidence. Adds broken or poorly redirected URLs that retain search value.

What this report checks

Checks crawl movement, live page regressions, and changes to technical findings.
Reviews representative URL Inspection snapshots and broken URLs that retain search value.
Runs each source independently and separates recoveries, quota blocks, fetch failures, and intentional controls.

How it works

Runs the shared monitoring reports independently, then merges supported regressions and follow-ups without turning one missing section into a failure.

The JSON result keeps dates, thresholds, limits, skipped work, and source completeness beside the finding. Missing, partial, capped, filtered, and complete data remain different states.

Run the report from the CLI

Run crawl and Google index monitoring together. Agents and CI should inspect the live schema before their first run.

Run it from the CLI

seo technical-watch --project example

Check the agent input schema

seo reports describe technical-watch --json

Run it from an agent or script

seo reports run technical-watch --params '{"site":"sc-domain:example.com","startUrl":"https://example.com/","sitemaps":["https://example.com/sitemap.xml"],"limit":250,"dailyLimit":200,"inspectLimit":25,"recoverLinks":true}' --json

Project profiles can fill supported property and analytics inputs for the human-facing commands. The catalog form shown here is explicit by design, so agents and CI jobs do not prompt or guess.

How an MCP agent should use it

Call seo_describe_report first so the agent sees when this report is useful and gets the current input schema. Then callseo_run_report with the validated parameters. Read the status, warnings, source limits, and skipped sections before acting on a finding.

Describe the report with MCP

{
  "id": "technical-watch"
}

Run the report with MCP

{
  "id": "technical-watch",
  "params": {
    "site": "sc-domain:example.com",
    "startUrl": "https://example.com/",
    "sitemaps": [
      "https://example.com/sitemap.xml"
    ],
    "limit": 250,
    "dailyLimit": 200,
    "inspectLimit": 25,
    "recoverLinks": true
  }
}

Use a follow-up report returned by the result instead of guessing the next tool. The local MCP server and CLI use the same report definition and evidence. Their outer transport envelopes differ.

Use the report in a TypeScript app

Install seo as a project dependency, then call the same report catalog used by the CLI and MCP. executeReportrejects an unknown report id or invalid parameters. Provider and runtime failures come back as structured results withisError set.

Install the library

npm install seo

Run this report from TypeScript

import { executeReport } from 'seo/mcp'

const result = await executeReport(
  'technical-watch',
  {
  "site": "sc-domain:example.com",
  "startUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "sitemaps": [
    "https://example.com/sitemap.xml"
  ],
  "limit": 250,
  "dailyLimit": 200,
  "inspectLimit": 25,
  "recoverLinks": true
},
)

console.log(result)

The TypeScript library guide also covers direct core functions, schema discovery, and the difference betweenexecuteReport and runReport.

What comes back and how to read it

A technical monitoring summary with crawl changes, sampled index changes, link recovery work, and operational failures.
The highest-priority regressions to inspect next, with source-specific caveats.
Follow-up commands for representative pages and the next comparable run.
Start with operational failures, then distinguish live crawl changes from indexed-snapshot changes. Verify intent before fixing directives or canonicals.

Start with dataStatus, source details, warnings, and caveats. Then inspect the observed evidence before derived findings or suggested actions.

What this report cannot tell you

Neither a limited crawl nor sampled URL Inspection provides complete site coverage.

What to do next

Audit representative regressions directly.
Compare the next run with the same scope.

Monitor crawl changes. Crawl the same limited URL scope again and find technical or page changes since the previous monitoring run.
Review Google index changes. Inspect a limited URL set and separate current index issues, regressions, recoveries, and operational failures.
Recover broken URLs with search value. Find URLs that still earn returned clicks or impressions but now fail, block access, or redirect poorly.

Sources behind the guidance

These primary sources define the provider data or search controls used in the interpretation above.

Browse all reports in Multi-report workflows.