# Five rules and a five-check script for price alerts you can trust (free sample)

> From Deal Alert Worker: five rules for a price watch (owner-only alerts, a top total with delivery cost, two matching reads, quiet hours, no auto-buy), a spec template, and a read-only script that checks a spec for all five, with a worked example.

- URL: https://paperchasewebb.ai/bots/marketplace/items/deal-alert-worker-five-rules-and-checks-free-sample/
- Type: Bot template
- Category: Vibe coding
- By: PaperChaseWebb
- Works with: Claude Code, Codex, Grok Bot, Hermes (named in the listing); Plain .md plus one Python 3 script, standard library only; one prompt for all four harnesses
- Price: Free USD
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Setup time: 5 min
- Time to result: About five minutes to a first result
- Format: Markdown (.md) file, deal-alert-worker-five-rules-and-checks-free-sample.md
- Version: 1.0, updated 2026-10-28
- License: Personal and commercial use.

## What you end up with

In a minute you know whether a watch spec would spam you, wake you, fake a deal or buy on its own, and what to change.

## What you get

- Five rules for price alerts
- A watch spec template
- deal_mini.py: five read-only checks
- One prompt for all four harnesses
- Worked example: 5 findings, then 0

## Who it is for

Anyone about to set up a price alert, by hand or with an agent, who wants to check the setup before it runs.

## Tools needed

- Claude Code, Codex, Hermes or Grok Bot: runs the source spike once, writes the spec, and summarizes an alert read-only when you ask
- Python 3: runs the price watch on a timer, the fifteen-check checker and the eval set; standard library only
- You need: Python 3.9 or newer
- You need: Any of Grok Bot, Claude Code, Codex or Hermes

Cost to run: Free.

## Sample prompt: Check a spec (Grok Bot, Claude Code, Codex, Hermes)

```
Run python3 deal_mini.py deal.watch.json. Do not change anything.
For each finding, say what would go wrong and the change that fixes it, then wait for me.
```

The rules and the script are in the file.

## Free preview of deal-alert-worker-five-rules-and-checks-free-sample.md

````markdown
# Deal Alert Worker, free sample: a watch spec template, five rules and a five-check script

Version 1.0, 2026-10-28. By PaperChaseWebb. Works with Grok Bot, Claude Code, Codex and Hermes. Python 3 standard library. Tested on Linux with Python 3.13.5 as described below.

Most price alerts fail in the same ways: a price that was a parsing error, a low price eaten by delivery cost, the same alert every hour, alerts at 3 AM, and, with agent setups, a bot that could buy on its own. This sample gives you the habit that prevents most of that: write the watch down as a small spec and check it before anything runs it. Credit for the idea of one parser shared by a server engine and a browser engine, and for testing on saved real pages, goes to u/kotyzap's Deal Radar write-up: https://www.reddit.com/r/vibecoding/comments/1xe56y8/i_vibecoded_deal_radar_a_browser_extension/

## Five rules

1. Alerts go to the owner only. Not a group, not a team channel.
2. Watch the total, price plus delivery cost, and set a max_total. When delivery cost is unknown, assume a fair amount rather than zero.
3. Ask for two matching reads in a row before an alert. One bad parse is not a deal.
4. Set quiet hours in your own time zone. Deals found at night can wait for a morning batch.
5. Nothing buys on its own. The spec says purchase "owner_only" and has no checkout or auto-buy fields.

## A spec template

```json
{
 "owner": "sam",
 "timezone": "America/Chicago",
 "quiet_hours": {"start": "22:00", "end": "07
````

## Worth knowing

- The sample checks a spec; it does not read any site or send alerts. The runner, Worker, extension, approvals, fifteen checks and eval set are in the full pack.
- On 2026-10-28 deal_mini.py gave 5 findings on the worked example, then 0 on the template, and exit 2 on a missing file. The prompt was not run inside a harness.

## Questions

**Does it send anything anywhere?** No. It reads one file and opens no network connection.

**What is in the full pack?** A source spike prompt, a runner that reads JSON-LD, JSON and RSS on a timer within robots.txt, a Cloudflare Worker and a browser extension sharing one tested core, dedupe, quiet hours, a watch-broken alert, approvals tied to hashes, a buy-check, fifteen checks and a labeled eval set. $19.

## How to get it

Free sample. Download it directly at https://paperchasewebb.ai/bots/marketplace/items/deal-alert-worker-five-rules-and-checks-free-sample/, no signup.

Seller: PaperChaseWebb Inc., mgmt@paperchasewebb.com