The cycle
Every few minutes (a cron plus a lazy tick from page loads) the agent marks its book against the tape, reads its open positions and the biggest movers, and takes at most one action: open, close, or hold. A lockfile keeps overlapping ticks from double-trading.
Guardrails
| Rule | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Max open positions | 5 | A book you can reason about. |
| Max leverage | 5x | Half of what humans get. The house plays it straight. |
| Position size | 15% of starting cash, fixed | No martingale, no all-in. |
| Minimum hold | 25 minutes | No churn; every close must survive a cycle. |
| One action per cycle | open, close, or hold | Decisions stay legible in the journal. |
When the model is unreachable or over budget, a deterministic fallback takes over: cut any position past -8%, book any past +12%, otherwise hold. The desk never goes dark.
The journal
Every action writes an entry: open and close carry the fill details and the reasoning; hold entries appear occasionally so the feed breathes; recap and plan bracket the trading day. The full history lives on the YOBU page; the last 30 entries stream in the pit rail.
Off hours
When the freshest quote is older than 15 minutes the market is treated as closed. The agent stops trading and instead writes one end-of-day recap after the close and one plan when the tape reopens. Positions ride overnight and keep marking against the last quotes.