Trading Bridge: Setting Up Automated Trading

The SkyAnalyst Trading Bridge connects your AI-generated trade signals to your local trading platform (cTrader today, MetaTrader 5 soon). It is a Windows desktop application that acts as a relay: when your monitored trades trigger entry conditions, the bridge forwards the signal to a bot running inside your trading platform, which places the order.

📥 Download Trading Bridge for Windows — Save the .exe and follow the Installation section below.

Important: The Trading Bridge is a BETA feature. Always test with demo accounts before enabling automated execution on live capital. The current minimum supported bridge version is v1.46.

What is the Trading Bridge

A desktop application for Windows that:

• Runs on your local machine alongside your trading platform
• Receives trade signals from SkyAnalyst when entry conditions are met
• Forwards signals to your cTrader (or, soon, MetaTrader 5) bot
• Enables fully automated trade execution from AI analysis to platform entry

The bridge itself does not execute trades. It relays signals to a bot that lives inside your trading platform, and the bot handles the actual order placement.

System Requirements

Installation

Step 1: Download the Desktop App

1. Open Settings in SkyAnalyst AI (gear icon in the sidebar)
2. Scroll to the SkyAnalyst Trading Bridge section (marked BETA)
3. Click "Download for Windows"
4. Save the installer (SkyAnalyst-Trading-Bridge.exe) to your computer

Step 2: Install on Windows

1. Run the downloaded SkyAnalyst-Trading-Bridge.exe
2. The first-run wizard detects that the .exe is in your Downloads folder and offers to install it to %LocalAppData%\SkyAnalystBridge\. Accept the default and check "Create desktop shortcut".
3. The installer copies the executable, registers the bundled cTrader bot file, creates the shortcut, and relaunches the bridge from its permanent location.
4. The bridge starts and waits for a pairing code.

Why this matters: running directly from Downloads is fine, but you will lose the .exe the next time you clear the folder. The wizard's one-click install keeps the bridge in a stable location and prevents Windows from quarantining a "downloaded executable" on every launch.

Pairing Your Device

The pairing process creates a secure connection between your SkyAnalyst web account and your desktop Trading Bridge app.

Step 1: Generate a Pairing Code

1. In the SkyAnalyst web app, go to Settings -> Trading Bridge
2. Click "Generate Pairing Code"
3. A code in XXXX-YYYY format appears with a 10-minute countdown timer
4. Copy the code (click the copy button or select and copy)

Pairing codes use a 32-character alphabet (no ambiguous 0/O or 1/I) and are single-use. There are over a trillion possible codes, but they expire in 10 minutes, so generate fresh ones close to the moment you enter them.

Step 2: Enter the Code in the Bridge App

1. Open the SkyAnalyst Trading Bridge desktop application
2. Enter the pairing code displayed in your browser (case-insensitive, dashes optional)
3. The Bridge app validates the code with the SkyAnalyst relay and establishes the connection

Step 3: Verify Connection

Once paired successfully:

• The web app shows a "Connected" status with your device name
• Last seen timestamp updates in real time
• You can test the connection using the "Test Connection" button, which sends a non-trading connection_test payload through the relay and measures round-trip latency

Pro Tip: Pairing codes expire after 10 minutes and can only be used once. If a code expires, simply generate a new one. You can pair up to 3 devices per account.

Installing Trading Bots

Once your Trading Bridge is connected, you need a bot running inside your trading platform that listens for signals from the bridge. The bridge does not place orders directly; it forwards each signal to a bot, and the bot places the order on your broker account.

cTrader workspace with the SkyAnalyst Automated Trader bot in the Active state

cTrader Bot Installation

The cTrader bot is bundled with the desktop bridge and installed in one click.

Prerequisites

• cTrader Desktop installed and signed in to your broker account.
• A broker that supports cTrader Algo (cBot) automated trading. Pepperstone is the reference broker used in the bundled defaults; IC Markets, FP Markets, and other cTrader brokers also work. Check that your broker allows API/cBot trading on the account type you are using.
• An account with sufficient balance and the right leverage for the lot sizes you plan to trade. The bot computes lot size from the AI's recommended risk percentage, not from a fixed lot.
• "Allow automated trading" enabled in cTrader (one-time toggle in the platform's preferences).

Step 1: Locate the bot file

When you installed the bridge, the bundled bot file was copied alongside the executable:

%LocalAppData%\SkyAnalystBridge\SkyAnalyst Automated Trader.algo

You can also re-install it from the bridge dashboard at any time via the Install Automated Trader -> Install in cTrader button. That button extracts the .algo file from the bridge installation and opens it with cTrader.

Step 2: Import the bot into cTrader

1. Double-click SkyAnalyst Automated Trader.algo, OR click Install in cTrader in the bridge dashboard.
2. cTrader opens an import dialog: confirm the import.
3. The bot appears in the cTrader Algo tab under cBots -> SkyAnalyst Automated Trader.

If Windows shows "How would you like to open this file?", cTrader is not yet installed or not associated with .algo files. Open cTrader first, then re-run the install.

Step 3: Attach the bot to a chart per instrument

Each running bot instance listens on its own local port and handles one instrument. The bridge ships with bundled default ports, one per instrument:

For each instrument you want to automate:

1. Open the cTrader chart for that exact symbol (e.g., US30 on your Pepperstone account).
2. Drag SkyAnalyst Automated Trader from the cBots panel onto the chart.
3. In the bot's parameters, set the Listening Port to the matching port from the table above (e.g., 8050 for US30).
4. Click Start. The bot status flips to Running (green).

You can run multiple instances of the bot in parallel, each on its own chart and its own port.

Step 4: Confirm the bridge route is configured

Open the bridge dashboard, go to the Routes view, and confirm that the destination for the port you just attached is Enabled and has the correct Routing Key. The bundled defaults are already wired up, but verifying matters because a missing or wrong routing key silently drops the signal.

<SYMBOL>-<BROKER>

Enabling Automated Trading

Per-Trade Automation

Once your Trading Bridge is connected and a bot is running:

1. Navigate to your Monitored Trades in the AI Trading Agents hub
2. Find the trade you want to automate
3. Click the "Automate" button on the trade card
4. In the connection modal, click "ENABLE AUTOMATED TRADING"
5. The button changes color to indicate automation is active (orange = active, purple = inactive)

When enabled, the following happens automatically:

• The AI monitors the trade as usual (entry zone alerts, condition evaluation)
• When entry conditions are met, instead of only alerting you, the signal is also sent to your Trading Bridge
• The bridge forwards the complete trade details to the bot matching the trade's instrument
• The bot places the order in your trading platform

The connection modal with auto-trade active — the orange button confirms signals will be forwarded

Wizard-level Automation (AutomatedTradingCard)

Inside the Generate Trade Ideas wizard (Step 6) you can flip auto-execute on for every trade an agent produces, without having to enable per-trade. This lives in the AutomatedTradingCard in the AI Trading Agents wizard.

• The card is disabled until you have paired a bridge device.
• Once paired, the toggle becomes available. An AutomatedTradingConfirmDialog asks you to confirm the risk before enabling.
• The toggle's state is per-agent: a Smart Scan US30 agent with auto-execute on will forward every triggered setup; a different agent on the same account can remain manual.

For the full wizard walkthrough, see the AI Trading Agents chapter of this guide -> The Wizards -> Step 6: Automated Trading.

Grade-A Fast Track

The GradeAFastTrackCard (same wizard step) opts your agent into a faster execution path for Grade-A setups (confidence ≥ 8 (eight or above)):

• Step-1 conditions (the bullet list of evidence the AI required) are skipped.
• The zone gate still applies: price must enter the AI's entry zone before the signal fires.
• The AI Entry Evaluator still runs as a safety veto — it can reject a Grade-A setup if the live read disagrees, and the four hard gates (open-position guard, news-blocking window, recent-loss gate, same-direction loss gate) can still block the alert.

Use Grade-A Fast Track when you want speed on the AI's highest-confidence ideas; leave it off when you want the full conditions check on every trade. See the AI Trading Agents chapter for the full rationale and risk discussion.

What the Signal Contains

Each automated signal includes:

• Instrument: the routing key (e.g., US30-Pepperstone)
• Direction: LONG or SHORT
• Entry zone: minimum, maximum, aggressive, and conservative levels
• Stop loss: tight and wide options
• Take profit levels: TP1, TP2, TP3 with ranges
• AI confidence score and grade
• position_size_pct: the AI's recommended risk percentage
• AI decision notes (machine-readable rationale)

The bot uses this information to place orders according to its configuration.

Fill confirmation gap (important): SkyAnalyst marks a trade as "entered" based on its own price feed crossing the entry zone, not on a confirmation from your broker. The bot's actual fill may differ slightly (or fail entirely if the broker rejects the order). Always cross-check the position in cTrader, especially during news or thin liquidity, and treat the SkyAnalyst "entered" badge as a signal-side state, not a broker-side state.

Monitoring & Troubleshooting

Connection Status

The bridge sends an application-level heartbeat every 20 seconds (v1.46+; earlier versions used 30 s). The web app interprets this as follows:

• Green WiFi icon: bridge is connected and the last heartbeat arrived inside the expected window
• Amber WifiOff icon: the bridge was recently connected but has missed one or more heartbeats — typically this means SignalR is reconnecting after an idle disconnect, or the bridge process is paused (laptop sleep, app minimized to tray, network hiccup). The web app still shows your device as "Last seen X ago." If you see amber for more than ~30 s, check that the bridge tray icon shows "Connected."
• Disconnected: bridge app is not running or has lost connectivity for longer than the timeout.

The 20-second cadence (down from 30 s) is tighter than every documented edge-proxy idle timeout, so transient amber states on a stable wired connection are usually a sign of a real network blip, not a heartbeat-tuning issue.

The three bridge connection states — green, amber, and disconnected — as they appear in Settings

Latency Interpretation

When you click Test Connection, the relay returns a round-trip latency in milliseconds.

Device Management

• View all paired devices in Settings -> Trading Bridge
• See the last seen timestamp and latency for each device
• Disconnect a device if you no longer need it
• Maximum 3 active devices per account

Common Issues

Webhook Security

When you (or an agent) configure webhook delivery from SkyAnalyst — either to your bridge device URL or to an external endpoint — there are a few canonical safeguards to know:

1. Per-device webhook URLs: every paired bridge has a unique URL of the form https://skyanalyst-relay-production.up.railway.app/<deviceId>/webhook. The device ID is a UUID — treat it as a secret. Anyone with the URL can push payloads at your bridge.
2. Relay-side validation: the relay only forwards if the payload has the required envelope fields (EventId, Timestamp, Type, UserId, AccountId, Data). Connection tests use a separate type: "connection_test" payload that is forwarded without ACK tracking.
3. Bridge-side fail-closed routing: as covered above, no routing key means no forward.
4. Custom security headers: for external webhooks (alerting your own backend, Telegram bots, custom dashboards), you can configure custom security headers in Settings -> Webhook Security. The SkyAnalyst dispatcher will add those headers to every outbound webhook so your endpoint can verify the request is genuinely from SkyAnalyst.

For the per-alert webhook security note that appears inline in the wizards (Monitoring Alerts, Trade Setup Alerts, Analysis Notifications), the canonical link is the same: Settings -> Webhook Security.

Operational rule: rotate the device pairing (disconnect + re-pair) if you ever leak the device URL. Codes are cheap; a compromised bridge URL means a third party could send arbitrary payloads to your bot.

Safety & Limits

Critical Safety Rule: Always test automated execution on a demo account first. Start with the smallest possible position size. Monitor the first several automated trades closely before trusting the system to operate unattended. You remain responsible for all trades executed through the Trading Bridge.