copytrading

CopyTrading is a native macOS app that reads the stock calls traders post on Discord, turns each one into an exact order, checks it against your limits, and places it with your Alpaca account. Everything runs on your Mac.

[!WARNING] Not financial advice. Nothing in this project, including the app, its assistant, and the traders it copies, is investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nobody here recommends any trade. Trading can lose some or all of your money. You alone choose whom to copy and what limits to set, and you are responsible for every order placed in your accounts. The software is provided as is, without warranty (MIT license).

Developer preview. CopyTrading has not been qualified for live trading. Start with an Alpaca paper account, and see validation for what has and has not been proven.

Features

• Posts become exact orders. A model you choose reads each post, and every ticker, price, and fraction must appear in the post itself, so it cannot invent a number.
• Your limits, per account. Daily loss, per-order, per-symbol, and total exposure limits are checked before every copied buy. Each account has its own Start Copying and Stop Copying.
• Many traders, many accounts. Each account follows one guru and sizes its calls from that guru's full position, so several gurus copy side by side into their own accounts, paper and live together.
• Every position traces to its post. Each copied buy is kept as a lot that names the post behind it, and you can sell any lot on its own. Shares you trade yourself in Alpaca are counted as yours on the next sync.
• Always live. Balances, positions, and the equity curve are read from your broker even while copying is paused. Fills arrive as notifications, the menu bar shows today's change, and after time away a recap says what happened.
• Room to change your mind. A sale or a confirmed copy waits a few seconds with Undo before it leaves, and a skipped call can be brought back.
• Fast to get around. Accounts and gurus are the sidebar; ⌘K finds any page, action, or post; Control-1 and Control-2 switch a page's tabs.
• An assistant that cannot trade on its own. ⌘J answers from your real posts and accounts. Anything that could place an order waits for your Touch ID.
• Private by design. Keys stay in the macOS Keychain. The app talks to Discord, your model provider, and your broker, plus Telegram if you turn on alerts and GitHub when you check for updates.

Works with a dozen hosted model services, local models through Ollama, or any OpenAI-compatible address, in English or 简体中文.

Install

You need an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 26 or later.

1. Download CopyTrading for macOS (57 MB).
2. Open the DMG and drag CopyTrading into Applications.
3. Open CopyTrading. Preview builds are not yet notarized by Apple, so the first time macOS blocks it: go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and choose Open Anyway. You only do this once.

Every release lists SHA-256 checksums, and releases explains how to verify a download.

Updates arrive in the app: it checks once a day and asks before installing. Keep CopyTrading in Applications; macOS stops an app in Desktop, Documents, or Downloads from replacing itself. If an update from an alpha quit and CopyTrading did not reopen, move it to Applications and open it again, or download the DMG above.

Or build from source with uv and the Xcode Command Line Tools:

git clone https://github.com/YZXBiz/copytrading.git
cd copytrading
make app

make app checks your Mac, downloads a pinned and checksummed runtime, builds the app, and opens it. The first build takes a few minutes.

Get started

A first launch opens on Connections with a short tour that points at each next step. Nothing is saved or traded until you press Start Copying.

Everything is set up in Connections, top to bottom:

1. Discord: the channels to read and your Discord token.
2. Interpreter: the model that reads posts, and its API key.
3. Broker accounts: an Alpaca paper account.
4. Gurus: choose the account each guru copies into (its max per stock is the guru's full position), press Learn from Channel, and review the playbook it drafts.
5. Press Start Copying. It checks every connection first, and starts only when they all pass.

Every field that needs a key or an ID has a Where do I find this? link. When you are ready, press Start Copying on the account's page and watch the first post arrive on the guru's page.

How it works

A SwiftUI app supervises one local Python engine. The engine owns every decision, keeps it in SQLite, and reconciles with the broker after a crash or sleep, so a signal that expires while the app is closed never becomes a late order. Architecture has the details and the ADRs record why.

Command line and agents

The copytrading CLI and MCP server let you, a script, or a coding agent read the running app and pause it, and the CLI sets it up. Anything that could trade becomes a proposal you approve with Touch ID in the app. copytrading accounts limits ACCOUNT --max-order-usd 300 … changes an account's limits and copytrading start starts copying with Start Copying's own checks; both wait for your Touch ID in the app. Turn it on in Settings → Agent Access, then put the command that ships inside the app on your PATH:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin && ln -sf /Applications/CopyTrading.app/Contents/Helpers/copytrading ~/.local/bin/copytrading

$ copytrading status
Engine      running
Processing  running
Source      connected
Model       ready
Queued      0 messages, 0 signals
Account     primary  running, copying on, recovery manual

$ copytrading accounts limits primary --max-order-usd 300
Waiting for approval in CopyTrading: change primary: max order usd = 300. Proposal p-4e1a9c07d2b3, expires 2026-10-14 16:42:00.

$ copytrading start
Waiting for approval in CopyTrading: start copying. Proposal p-81f0c6a95e24, expires 2026-10-14 16:43:10.

copytrading setup sets everything up without the window: Discord, the model, Alpaca accounts with their keys and limits, gurus, and alerts. Edits go into the same unsaved setup Connections sho