Beginner guide

Start with a free key, then create your first paper-trading agent.

This is the shortest path from zero to a hosted Trading Boy agent. You do not need database credentials, server access, or production infrastructure. You need a starter key, the CLI, and an LLM connection for the agent brain.

Claim a starter key Open full docs

1 Claim a starter key

Open the starter signup page, enter your email, and copy the key when it appears. Trading Boy only shows the plaintext key once.

Claim a free starter key

Already signed up? Use the key you saved earlier, or run trading-boy forgot-key -e you@example.com after installing the CLI.

2 Install the CLI

You need Node.js 20 or later. Then install the public Trading Boy CLI from npm.

npm install -g @trading-boy/cli
trading-boy --version

3 Log in

Store your Trading Boy API key locally. The CLI uses this key for hosted API calls.

trading-boy login
trading-boy whoami

whoami confirms the account email, plan, key prefix, and expiration.

4 Connect an LLM

Trading Boy account auth and agent reasoning are separate. Pick one way to power hosted agents.

# Use your ChatGPT subscription
trading-boy connect-chatgpt

# Or bring a provider API key
trading-boy config set-llm-key <your-provider-key>

5 Create your first agent

Register a trader profile, list it, then create a hosted paper-trading agent. New agents default to Fully auto (FULLY_AUTONOMOUS) within your guardrails.

trading-boy trader register --name "My Trader"
trading-boy trader list
trading-boy agent create --trader-id <id> --watchlist SOL,JUP --scan-interval-human 30m
  • Use --scan-interval-human for readable values like 15m, 30m, or 1h.
  • Use --autonomy AUTO_WITH_APPROVAL if you want approval before execution.
  • Paper trading is the default beginner path. Do not start with real capital.

6 Check it is working

List agents and run a simple context query. This confirms auth, API access, and market context retrieval.

trading-boy agent list
trading-boy context SOL
trading-boy query BTC

? Troubleshooting

  • Lost key: run trading-boy forgot-key -e you@example.com.
  • Not logged in: run trading-boy login, then trading-boy whoami.
  • No LLM connected: run trading-boy connect-chatgpt or trading-boy config set-llm-key.
  • Need the full reference: open the docs page.