polymarket-research

name	polymarket-research
requires_mcps	["polymarket-live"]
description	Use when user says "what's the Polymarket market doing", "research a Polymarket market", "BTC 5m snapshot", "look up a Polymarket market", or "what are the odds on X". Live overview via `polymarket-live` MCP — bundles BTC 5m snapshot, market search, and order book. NOT for placing orders.

Polymarket research

Use this skill any time the user asks what a Polymarket market is doing right now, what the crowd thinks, or to look up a specific market. It leans entirely on the polymarket-live MCP — no shelling out, no guessing from training data.

When to use it

• "what's the BTC 5m doing right now?"
• "research the X Polymarket market"
• "what's the price on the 2028 election Yes token?"
• "show me the order book for "
• "is there even a Polymarket market for Y?"

When NOT to use it

• The user wants to place an order → that's the polymarket bot lane; refer them to the CLI, do not attempt via MCP.
• The user wants to open a prediction → polymarket predict open …; same reason. The MCP is read-only on purpose.

Recipe

A. "What's the BTC 5m doing right now?"

1. Call mcp__polymarket-live__btc_5m_snapshot() first. It returns question, slug, condition_id, seconds_remaining, price_to_beat (BTC at window start), current_price (live spot), edge_dollars, edge_pct, if_close_now ("UP"|"DOWN"|"TIE"), poly_up_price, poly_down_price, poly_implied_up.
2. Report in 3 lines:
   • market name + time-to-close
   • "BTC moved from $X to $Y → if window closed now: <UP|DOWN|TIE>"
   • "Crowd: P(up) = Z (up ¢, down ¢)"
3. Optionally call mcp__polymarket-live__predict_think(models=["polymarket","momentum","blend"]) to overlay model opinions.

B. "Look up a market"

1. Use mcp__polymarket-live__markets_search(query, limit=5) first. List the top 3 — for each row include slug + question + last price + 24h volume + end_date.
2. If the user points at a specific row, call mcp__polymarket-live__markets_get(id_or_slug) for full detail (outcomes, token IDs).
3. If they want depth, call mcp__polymarket-live__clob_book(token_id) on a relevant outcome and summarise top 5 bids / asks.

C. "Are the odds moving?"

1. clob_midpoints([yes_token, no_token]) for a quick snapshot.
2. If they want a time series, point them at polymarket predict watch for live charts — this skill does not poll a series itself (would blow up tokens).

Reporting style

• Lead with the answer. The user wants the number, not the recipe.
• Always include slug (or id) when naming a market, so they can re-look-up later.
• Quote prices to 3 decimals (0.485), volumes to 0 or 1 decimal ($24.3M not $24,322,109).
• If market_status() reports anything non-OK, surface that first — every other tool is going to be junk.

Failure modes

• MCP not registered → tell the user to add polymarket-live under mcpServers in ~/.claude.json and restart Claude.
• RuntimeError: polymarket binary not found → user needs to build: (cd ~/Documents/polymarket-cli && cargo build --release).
• Tool times out → fall back to a polymarket … -o json … shell call in a Bash tool with the same args; the CLI surface matches one-to-one.