Getting started

Pick the surface you actually want — the desktop app, the headless daemon, the data service or the one-shot runner — then install it and run something that cannot reach a real account.

Vike Trader is one execution core with several faces. Before installing anything, the question worth answering is which face you want, because the install differs and so does what you do first.

Nothing on this path can place a real order. Every venue starts on the paper exchange, and arming one is a deliberate act you take later, in a file, per venue.

Which surface

The desktop app

Charts, the DOM ladder, the trade panel and the Studio IDE. Windows or Linux, one window per thing you are watching. Start here if you want to see markets and click.

The headless daemon

vike-tradehub: no window, one strategy mounted, controlled over a socket. Start here if you want something that runs on a box and outlives your shell.

The command line

vike-cli: scaffold a project, run a backtest, drive a node — and the same binary serves the MCP tools an agent calls. Start here if you want a report without a GUI.

Where it runs

All five deployable shapes side by side, including the data service and the standalone runner — what each can do, who manages it, and what it needs.

Understand it, then size it. What is Vike Trader? is the two-minute tour; Requirements carries the measured numbers for GPU, memory, disk and network per surface — and the fact that there is no macOS build.

Then install. Docker is the shortest path and the one that needs least from your machine. Windows and Linux install the release binaries directly; each ends with one project folder holding settings, state, data and logs together.

Then run something. Two quickstarts, and they answer different questions. First backtest needs no credentials at all — it scaffolds the examples, seeds a synthetic tape and prints a report. First paper mount brings up a live market feed with every venue on the paper exchange, so you can watch real prices and place an order that reaches nothing. Your first chart does the same in the desktop app.

Then keep it current. Updating covers what a release is, how to tell which build is running, and what a version bump does to a write-ahead journal.

What comes after

Once something runs, the tree splits by what you are trying to do. The concepts explain how the thing works — the execution core, the venue seam, the journal, the gates. The guides are task-shaped: arm a venue, record a feed, replay a session, triage a stuck order. The tutorials are worked runs end to end, with every number pasted from a real one.

Arming is separate, and deliberate

Installing arms nothing. A venue trades live only once its per-venue ceiling in policy.toml says so and its credentials are present — the ceiling is read first, so a box with no [venues] table mounts everything paper whatever else is configured. See risk and arming before you go looking for the switch.