From payment to armed, in order
Nine steps. None of them works until the one before it does. Including the parts that are not finished yet.
Every screenshot here is the real app. Illustrations are labelled as illustrations.
What you need in front of you
A computer you control
macOS, Windows or Linux. It installs where you actually work, because that is where your keys live.
Node 20 and Python 3.10, or newer
The installer checks both and tells you what is missing rather than half-installing.
A broker account, if you want one
Alpaca paper trading works today. You can build, backtest and pass the gates without connecting anything.
A supported jurisdiction
Checkout stops before taking money if we cannot serve your region.
Step 01
Buy
$997 per year, one plan, everything in it.
Checkout runs through Stripe. Card details never touch our servers. We get your name, email, what you bought and the amount.
The payment mints your key, not the sign-up. An account with nothing paid holds no key and no access.
Step 02
Download and install the OS
The hosted platform opens in a browser. The OS is a copy you own.
Your account serves the archive and its checksum. Check it before unpacking. The build is not code-signed yet, so that check is the integrity story, and the notes say exactly what your computer will warn you about.
It checks your versions, builds its own Python environment and puts the ptq command on your path. Run it twice and the second time changes nothing.
# 1 — check the archive against its checksum
› shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS
# 2 — unpack and run the installer
› ./install.sh
[checks node + python, sets up the engine, links the ptq command]
# 3 — activate this device
› ptq activate PTQ-…
[device leased · credit allowance attached]
Step 03
Activate this device
One command, one device, one signed lease.
Your device swaps the licence key for a short-lived lease, signed by a key that only exists on our server. Every request checks that signature. An edited lease fails.
The lease carries your credit allowance. Two device seats, counted on the server, not on the honour system.
Step 04
Connect a broker — your keys, your machine
Optional, local-only, and refused if the venue does not recognise them.
Your keys go straight into your computer's own secret store. Keychain on macOS, DPAPI on Windows, Secret Service on Linux. They are never sent to us, and the website refuses any request carrying one.
They are tested against the broker before anything is saved. If the broker says no, nothing is written. Only your own machine can reach these routes.
Step 05
Build or clone a strategy
Explicit rules, not code — and the risk engine reads the draft as you write it.
Start from a template or from nothing: when to buy, when to sell, how much, where you get out. What trades is still yours.
Break one of your own limits and the builder says so. A rule the engine cannot run is refused with the reason, never approximated.
Step 06
Let the gates try to kill it
A backtest on real bars, then the statistics that ask whether it means anything.
Your rules run against real market history, and every run is stamped with where its data came from. If the engine is down the run fails and says so.
Then the gate runs, hunting for luck. Most strategies fail. When one does you are told which test caught it, and by how much.
Step 07
Paper trade it
Real quotes, real hours, no hindsight — and every fill labelled simulated.
Whatever survives trades on paper. Real prices, fake money, every fill labelled simulated. Paper orders pass the same risk checks a live one would.
This part is slow on purpose. Weeks of paper is how a strategy proves itself without hindsight. The loop can run it on a schedule while you are at work.
Step 08
Arm it yourself
Local only, explicitly confirmed, scoped and expiring.
You arm it on your own machine, one strategy at a time, with a scope and an expiry you set. No web page can arm anything. Change your limits afterwards and the arm dies rather than quietly inheriting them.
Plainly: the live path is experimental, single-shot, and never tested against the live venue. Automated execution, multi-broker support and production execution safety do not exist yet. Unattended live trading is built but switched off pending a compliance answer, so an armed strategy runs paper.
Step 09
Review what actually happened
A report over your own record that suggests and never adopts.
The review loop reads your own journal and answers four questions from real rows: what happened, why, what the gates said at the time, and what to try next.
Suggestions arrive as comparisons you can run yourself. Nothing is applied for you. If the engine is offline the report says so and invents nothing.
The route has brakes, and they are the point
Every one of these is the product working. If you want a tool that never says no, this is the wrong purchase.
- Checkout blocks the sale if your jurisdiction is one we cannot serve.
- The gate blocks most strategies, including ones you were sure about.
- The risk engine refuses an order that breaks limits you set yourself.
- A quote that moves past your limit refuses the order rather than chasing it.
- No broker connected means the live path stops — it never invents a fill.
- The calculation engine being offline stops a run rather than simulating one.
Still deciding? The product page walks the same route from the maths side, the security page covers where your keys and your data sit, and the FAQ answers the rest.