How BAI works, in the order you meet it.

Getting started

1. Install. Download the installer from the download page, run it, and open BAI. Windows will warn about an unknown publisher until our signing certificate is in place; choose More info, then Run anyway.
2. Create an account. On the sign-in window click Create an account. Confirm the email we send, come back, sign in. Tick Keep me signed in on a computer that is yours.
3. Read and accept. The Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Risk Disclosure appear side by side. Each box enables once you have scrolled that document to its end.
4. The desk opens on the practice tape. Everything works, nothing is real. Add a few names to watch on the Start here card and look around before you connect anything.

Brokers

Settings, Broker: four tiles. Choosing one disarms the desk and pauses any campaign; it never sells anything. Every venue needs its own account with that company; BAI never holds your money.

Practice tape. Simulated account, play money, synthetic prices. Where to start. No keys.

Alpaca. Create an account at alpaca.markets. In its dashboard make an API key for the paper account first; paste the key ID and secret into the tiles, press Test connection. The paper account behaves like the live one with play money. When you are ready for real money, make a live key and paste that instead.

Tradier. Create an account at tradier.com. Under API Access take the sandbox access token first; paste it, leave Account number blank, press Test connection. The sandbox is a paper account with delayed prices.

Schwab. Schwab needs a developer app of your own. At developer.schwab.com create an app with the callback https://127.0.0.1:8182; approval takes a few days. Paste its App key and App secret into the tiles, click Sign in at Schwab, approve BAI in your browser. On the way back the browser warns about a local certificate: choose Advanced, then continue. That warning is the price of the callback landing on your own computer rather than on a server of ours.

Market data

Settings, Market data: three named companies. One is enough to start, and each has a free tier. Get a Finnhub account, paste its key, press Test the sources; live quotes begin at once. Polygon adds the whole-market scan and daily charts; Alpha Vantage is a fallback for daily bars. Your broker also provides chart history once connected. BAI only ever asks these companies for prices; nothing about your trades goes to them.

Arm and the phrase

A connected broker is not trading. Real orders need two things typed by you: the phrase I_UNDERSTAND_THIS_IS_REAL_MONEY once, to allow live orders on this computer, and Arm, each time you want the scanner to act. Armed means the desk enters trades on the names you allow, inside the caps you set, with a stop and a target on every one, held at your broker. Disarm stops new entries; it does not sell. Nothing in chat, email or on this website can arm the desk.

Campaigns

A campaign is the desk trading a set amount of money on its own for a set number of days: it arms itself each regular session, stops for the day at the daily limit, and pauses itself for good at the loss limit you chose. It is the way to let BAI work while you do not watch it.

1. Pick how careful. Careful, Balanced or Active fill the numbers from the desk's own sizing off your account. Overtype any of them.
2. Pick how long. One week, two, a month, or a date.
3. Read the sentence. It says exactly what you are choosing: the money, the days, and the loss that ends it.
4. Look at the two cards. One says whether anything on your list has earned an unattended run yet (live campaigns need a record first; on the practice tape nothing is blocked). The other replays your list through the last sixty sessions with this money and says what those rules would have done. Hypothetical, and it cannot place an order.
5. Type the phrase and start. The page then tells the story every day: which day it is, what it is doing right now and why, net so far, money in play, what it holds, and what happened. Pause, change the money or the end date, or end it by typing its name.

What stops it

• The stop on every trade, held at your broker, whether or not your computer is on.
• The daily loss limit, which ends the day, and the campaign loss limit, which ends the campaign.
• The kill switch: the button in the desk, the link in the alert email, the watchdog on your computer when the desk goes silent for two minutes, and our side if your account is compromised. A kill disarms and blocks new orders; it never sells behind your back.
• A lapsed or failed subscription: no new entries, exits still managed.
• Unknown data: a stale quote, a missing account snapshot, an unknown earnings date. Each blocks an entry rather than guessing.

The words

Sleeve: the only money the desk may use. Cap: a limit you set that the desk cannot exceed. Allowlist: the names it may trade. Watchlist: the names it looks at. Setup: a pattern in the price it recognises. Bracket: an entry with its stop and target attached, held by the broker. R: one unit of risk, the distance from entry to stop. Book: the record of every trade. Brain: the rules that judge a setup; it never changes itself without your veto window.