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How to watch keys

Guide to watching etcd keys

Prerequisites

Watching keys

watch to get notified of future changes:

etcdctl watch $KEY [$END_KEY]

Options

-i, --interactive[=false]: interactive mode
--prefix[=false]: watch on a prefix if prefix is set
--rev=0: Revision to start watching
--prev-kv[=false]: get the previous key-value pair before the event happens
--progress-notify[=false]: get periodic watch progress notification from server

Options inherited from parent commands

--endpoints="127.0.0.1:2379": gRPC endpoints

Examples

06_etcdctl_watch_2016050501
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS watch stock1
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put stock1 1000

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS watch stock --prefix
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put stock1 10
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put stock2 20
Last modified September 8, 2026 · refactor(docs): move component documentation under /docs (f643529)
Adapted from etcd v3.7 documentation (v3.7, commit 8245979), Copyright 2013-present etcd Authors, under CC BY 4.0. See attribution and change history.