| 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?"
- 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.
- 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 ¢)"
- Optionally call
mcp__polymarket-live__predict_think(models=["polymarket","momentum","blend"])
to overlay model opinions.
B. "Look up a market"
- 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.
- If the user points at a specific row, call
mcp__polymarket-live__markets_get(id_or_slug) for full detail
(outcomes, token IDs).
- 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?"
clob_midpoints([yes_token, no_token]) for a quick snapshot.- 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.
