Brokerages

Alpaca

Introduction

The Lean CLI supports live trading on your local machine or in QuantConnect Cloud, which makes the transfer from backtesting to live trading as seamless as possible. You must log in using your QuantConnect account to deply your algorithm on your local machine or in QuantConnect Cloud. This page contains instructions on how to start live trading with the Alpaca brokerage. If the Lean Configuration file in your organization workspace contains values for some of the command options, the CLI skips some of the prompts.

To view the implementation of the Alpaca brokerage integration, see the Lean.Brokerages.Alpaca repository.

Deploy Local Algorithms

Follow these steps to start local live trading with the Alpaca brokerage:

  1. Log in to the CLI if you haven't done so already.
  2. Open a terminal in the organization workspace that contains the project.
  3. Run lean live deploy "<projectName>" to start a live deployment wizard for the project in . / <projectName> and then enter the brokerage number, 16. 
    $ lean live deploy "My Project"
Select a brokerage:
1) Paper Trading
2) Interactive Brokers
3) Tradier
4) OANDA
5) Bitfinex
6) Coinbase Advanced Trade
7) Binance
8) Zerodha
9) Samco
10) Terminal Link
11) Trading Technologies
12) Kraken
13) Charles Schwab
14) Bybit
15) TradeStation
16) Alpaca
Enter an option: 16
  4. In the browser window that automatically opens, click Allow. 
    $ lean live "My Project"
Please open the following URL in your browser to authorize the LEAN CLI.
https://www.quantconnect.com/api/v2/live/auth0/authorize?brokerage=alpaca
Will sleep 5 seconds and retry fetching authorization...
  5. Enter the environment to use. 
    $ lean live "My Project"
Live or Paper environment? (live, paper): live
  6. Enter the number of the live data provider(s) to use and then follow the steps required for the data connection. 
    $ lean live deploy "My Project"
Select a live data provider:
1) Interactive Brokers
2) Tradier
3) Oanda
4) Bitfinex
5) Coinbase Advanced Trade
6) Binance
7) Zerodha
8) Samco
9) Terminal Link
10) Trading Technologies
11) Kraken
12) Charles Schwab
13) IQFeed
14) Polygon
15) IEX
16) CoinApi
17) ThetaData
18) Custom data only
19) Bybit
20) TradeStation
21) Alpaca
To enter multiple options, separate them with comma:

    7. If you select one of the following data providers, see the respective page for more instructions:

  7. In the browser window that automatically opens, click Allow. 
    $ lean live "My Project"
Please open the following URL in your browser to authorize the LEAN CLI.
https://www.quantconnect.com/api/v2/live/auth0/authorize?brokerage=alpaca
Will sleep 5 seconds and retry fetching authorization...
  8. Enter your API key and API secret. 
    $ lean live "My Project"
Alpaca Api Key: PKEFXE36AR5OEG5K5KNQ
Alpaca Api Secret: ****************************************
  9. View the result in the <projectName> / live / <timestamp> directory. Results are stored in real-time in JSON format. You can save results to a different directory by providing the --output <path> option in step 2.

If you already have a live environment configured in your Lean configuration file, you can skip the interactive wizard by providing the --environment <value> option in step 2. The value of this option must be the name of an environment which has live-mode set to true.

Deploy Cloud Algorithms

Follow these steps to start live trading a project in the cloud with the Alpaca brokerage and the Alpaca data provider:

  1. Log in to the CLI if you haven't done so already.
  2. Open a terminal in the organization workspace that contains the project.
  3. Run lean cloud live deploy "<projectName>" --push --open to push . / <projectName>. to the cloud, start a live deployment wizard, and open the results in the browser once the deployment starts.
    4. $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
[1/1] Pushing 'My Project'
Successfully updated cloud file 'My Project/main.py'
Started compiling project 'My Project'
Successfully compiled project 'My Project'
  4. Enter 16 to select the Alpaca brokerage.
    5. $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Select a brokerage:
1) Paper Trading
2) Interactive Brokers
3) Tradier
4) Oanda
5) Bitfinex
6) Coinbase Advanced Trade
7) Binance
8) Zerodha
9) Samco
10) Terminal Link
11) Trading Technologies
12) Kraken
13) Charles Schwab
14) Bybit
15) TradeStation
16) Alpaca
Enter an option: 16
  5. In the browser window that automatically opens, click Allow. 
    $ lean cloud live "My Project" --push --open
Please open the following URL in your browser to authorize the LEAN CLI.
https://www.quantconnect.com/api/v2/live/auth0/authorize?brokerage=alpaca
Will sleep 5 seconds and retry fetching authorization...
  6. Enter the environment to use. 
    $ lean cloud live "My Project" --push --open
Live or Paper environment? (live, paper): live
  7. Configure your notification settings.

    8. You can configure any combination of email, webhook, SMS, and Telegram notifications for order events and emitted insights. To view the number of notification you can send for free, see the Live Trading Notification Quotas.

    $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Do you want to send notifications on order events? [y/N]: y
Do you want to send notifications on insights? [y/N]: y
Email notifications: None
Webhook notifications: None
SMS notifications: None
Select a notification method:
1) Email
2) Webhook
3) SMS
4) Telegram
Enter an option: 1
Email address: john.doe@example.com
Subject: Algorithm notification
Email notifications: john.doe@example.com
Webhook notifications: None
SMS notifications: None
Telegram notifications: None
Do you want to add another notification method? [y/N]: n
  8. Enable or disable automatic algorithm restarting.

    9. This feature attempts to restart your algorithm if it fails due to a runtime error, like a brokerage API disconnection.

    $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Do you want to enable automatic algorithm restarting? [Y/n]: y
  9. Set your initial cash balance.
    10. $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Previous cash balance: [{'currency': 'USD', 'amount': 100000.0}]
Do you want to set a different initial cash balance? [y/N]: y
Setting initial cash balance...
Currency: USD
Amount: 95800
Cash balance: [{'currency': 'USD', 'amount': 95800.0}]
Do you want to add more currency? [y/N]: n
  10. Set your initial portfolio holdings.
    11. $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Do you want to set the initial portfolio holdings? [y/N]: y
Do you want to use the last portfolio holdings? [] [y/N]: n
Setting custom initial portfolio holdings...
Symbol: GOOG
Symbol ID: GOOCV VP83T1ZUHROL
Quantity: 10
Average Price: 50
Portfolio Holdings: [{'symbol': 'GOOG', 'symbolId': 'GOOCV VP83T1ZUHROL', 'quantity': 10, 'averagePrice': 50.0}]
Do you want to add more holdings? [y/N]: n
  11. Select the live node that you want to use.

    12. If you only have one idle live trading node, it is selected automatically and this step is skipped.

    $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Select a node:
1) L-MICRO node 89c90172 - 1 CPU @ 2.4GHz, 0.5GB Ram
2) L-MICRO node 85a52135 - 1 CPU @ 2.4GHz, 0.5GB Ram
Enter an option: 1
  12. Enter 19 to select the Alpaca data provider.
    13. $ lean live "My Project"
Select a live data feed:
1) QuantConnect
2) Interactive Brokers
3) Tradier
4) Oanda
5) Bitfinex
6) Coinbase Advanced Trade
7) Binance
8) Zerodha
9) Samco
10) Terminal Link
11) Trading Technologies
12) Kraken
13) Charles Schwab
14) Polygon
15) IEX
16) CoinApi
17) Bybit
18) TradeStation
19) Alpaca
To enter multiple options, separate them with comma: 19
  13. In the browser window that automatically opens, click Allow. 
    $ lean cloud live "My Project" --push --open
Please open the following URL in your browser to authorize the LEAN CLI.
https://www.quantconnect.com/api/v2/live/auth0/authorize?brokerage=alpaca
Will sleep 5 seconds and retry fetching authorization...
  14. Enter your API key and API secret. 
    $ lean live "My Project"
Alpaca Api Key: PKEFXE36AR5OEG5K5KNQ
Alpaca Api Secret: ****************************************
  15. Verify the configured settings and confirm them to start the live deployment in the cloud.
    16. $ lean cloud live deploy "My Project" --push --open
Brokerage: Alpaca
Project id: 1234567
Environment: Live
Server name: L-MICRO node 89c90172
Server type: L-MICRO
Live Data providers: Alpaca
LEAN version: 11157
Order event notifications: Yes
Insight notifications: Yes
Email notifications: john.doe@example.com
Webhook notifications: None
SMS notifications: None
Telegram notifications: None
Initial live cash balance: [{'currency': 'USD', 'amount': 95800.0}]
Initial live portfolio holdings: [{'symbol': 'GOOG', 'symbolId': 'GOOCV VP83T1ZUHROL', 'quantity': 10, 'averagePrice': 50.0}]
Automatic algorithm restarting: Yes
Are you sure you want to start live trading for project 'My Project'? [y/N]: y
  16. Inspect the result in the browser, which opens automatically after the deployment starts.

Follow these steps to see the live status of a project:

  1. Log in to the CLI if you haven't done so already.
  2. Open a terminal in the organization workspace that contains the project.
  3. Run lean cloud status "<projectName>" to show the status of the cloud project named "<projectName>".
    4. $ lean cloud status "My Project"
Project id: 1234567
Project name: My Project
Project url: https://www.quantconnect.com/project/1234567
Live status: Running
Live id: L-1234567a8901d234e5e678ddd9b0123c
Live url: https://www.quantconnect.com/project/1234567/live
Brokerage: Alpaca
Launched: 2021-06-09 15:10:12 UTC

Data Provider

For more information about the Alpaca data provider, see Alpaca.

You can also see our Videos. You can also get in touch with us via Discord.

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