# Adding a watcher directory?
**URL:** https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [May 13, 2024, 8:50pm UTC](https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129 "2024-05-13T20:50:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@linuxmclinuxface](https://zola.discourse.group/u/linuxmclinuxface)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2024, 8:50pm UTC](https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129/1 "2024-05-13T20:50:50Z")
When using the `zola serve`, I get the message
```shell
$ zola serve
...
Listening for changes in /some/path/{config.toml,content,sass,static,templates}
```
Is it possible to add to to the list of files/directories being watched? I’m using `load_data` to bring in data from another directory that isn’t in the list, so auto-reload doesn’t happen when altering those files. It would be super useful to have an command line argument to specify additional files.
Am I missing something?
---
### Author:  [@keats](https://zola.discourse.group/u/keats)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2024, 2:37pm UTC](https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129/2 "2024-05-15T14:37:24Z")
It’s not possible to watch other folders
---
### Author:  [@linuxmclinuxface](https://zola.discourse.group/u/linuxmclinuxface)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2024, 3:50pm UTC](https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129/3 "2024-05-15T15:50:57Z")
Would you be open to a PR that allows it via a command line switch?
---
### Author:  [@Dae](https://zola.discourse.group/u/Dae)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 7:14pm UTC](https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129/4 "2025-07-24T19:14:11Z")
It would be great if the Zola dev server could watch files loaded via `load_data`. In my sites I almost never put anything to the .md files, all content lives in YAML data structures.
---
### Author:  [@yashi](https://zola.discourse.group/u/yashi)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://zola.discourse.group/t/adding-a-watcher-directory/2129/5 "2025-08-06T20:53:00Z")
This has been fixed [Add optional arg to `serve` for extra paths to watch for changes by rparrett · Pull Request #2745 · getzola/zola · GitHub](https://github.com/getzola/zola/pull/2745)
```auto
❯ ~/src/zola/target/debug/zola serve --extra-watch-path data
Building site...
Checking all internal links with anchors.
> Successfully checked 0 internal link(s) with anchors.
-> Creating 24 pages (0 orphan) and 11 sections
Done in 216ms.
Web server is available at http://127.0.0.1:1111/ (bound to 127.0.0.1:1111)
Listening for changes in /home/yashi/work/spacecubics/www/{config.toml,content,sass,static,templates,data}
Press Ctrl+C to stop
Change detected @ 2025-08-07 05:50:43
-> /home/yashi/work/spacecubics/www/data/foo.yaml changed. Recreating whole site.
Checking all internal links with anchors.
> Successfully checked 0 internal link(s) with anchors.
-> Creating 24 pages (0 orphan) and 11 sections
Done in 198ms.
```