Paper Trade Runner

The pattern behind a working signal-only daemon for Nifty / BankNifty intraday options.

When to use

• User wants to test a strategy in live market conditions without real money.
• User wants signals delivered (UI / log / notification) but no order execution.
• User wants to build a P&L track record before sizing up.

Core loop

every N seconds during market hours (09:15 – 15:30 IST):
  1. fetch live quotes / candles
  2. evaluate entry rules → generate signal (or skip)
  3. for each open position:
       a. update mark-to-market
       b. check stop-loss / target / time-stop
       c. if hit → resolve, log, free capital
  4. at 15:20 IST → force-close all open positions (intraday safety)
  5. at 15:35 IST → write EOD summary

Required components

• Signal generator — pure function: (market_state) → Signal | None. Easy to unit test.
• Position store — JSON / SQLite. Each row: entry_time, instrument, side, qty, entry_price, sl, target, status, exit_time, exit_price, pnl.
• Capital tracker — starting balance, available margin, blocked margin. Reject signals that exceed available capital.
• Loss cap — hard stop at configurable daily DD (default: 5% of starting capital). Once hit, no new signals till next day.

Signal schema

{
  "id": "sig_20260606_0934_01",
  "instrument": "NIFTY26JUN24200CE",
  "side": "BUY",
  "qty": 50,
  "entry_price": 142.50,
  "stop_loss": 120.00,
  "target": 180.00,
  "rationale": "20EMA crossover + rising OI on 24200 CE",
  "generated_at": "2026-06-06T09:34:12+05:30"
}

EOD review

At 15:35 IST, emit:

• Total signals generated / taken / passed
• Win rate, avg win, avg loss, expectancy
• Max DD intraday
• Best and worst trade with rationale

Feed this into daily-pnl-reviewer skill for journaling.

Hard rules

• No `kite.place_order()` call. Ever. This skill is signal-only.
• No leveraged sizing assumptions. Use actual lot sizes and SEBI margin.
• Square off at 15:20 IST — intraday convention; avoids auto-square-off charges.

Anti-patterns to refuse

• "Make this place real orders" → refuse, point to risk of unsupervised execution.
• "Remove the loss cap" → refuse, the cap is the moat.