Alpaca Paper Trading

Use this skill when you want your AI agent to preview, submit, inspect, and manage paper-trading orders using Alpaca's Trading API.

This skill is written for you, a Trading API user working with your own Alpaca paper-trading account, credentials, and local workspace. Your agent should make assumptions visible, protect secrets, and confirm order details before submission.

This is the generic (implementation-agnostic) version of the paper-trading skill. It describes the workflow, safety gates, and output contract without binding to any specific execution tool. You can use the Alpaca Python SDK (alpaca-py), the REST API directly, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, C#, or any tool that speaks to the Trading API. CLI-specific and MCP-specific companion skills exist for users who prefer those execution paths — see §10 for links.

0 - How your AI agent should use this skill

1. Start with your job. Identify what the signal is — a backtest output, a manual trade idea, a scheduled trigger, or an automated system event. Your agent reads any associated context (backtest run folder, strategy description, alert payload) to understand the intent.

2. Reiterate the strategy logic. Your agent restates the strategy interpretation in plain language — entry/exit conditions, indicator parameters, position sizing, and any assumptions — and confirms with you that the interpretation is correct before proceeding.