What is Autoview? Automating Your Trading Strategies

Welcome to Autoview! If you're exploring automated trading, you've come to the right place. Autoview is designed to act as a crucial link in your trading setup, enabling you to execute trades directly from the alerts generated by your trading strategies on platforms like TradingView, Trendspider, or even custom Python scripts.

The Core Purpose: Bridging Alerts and Execution

At its heart, Autoview serves as a powerful bridge between your charting and alerting platforms and your live brokerage or exchange accounts. It receives signals, typically in the form of alerts containing specific commands, and then translates those commands into actual trades on your connected account. This eliminates the need for manual execution when an alert fires, allowing you to automate your strategies consistently and efficiently.

How it Works: Choosing Your Platform

Autoview offers flexibility in how you connect your alerts to your exchange. There are two primary platforms you can use:

1. The Autoview Chrome Extension: This version runs directly within your Google Chrome browser. It receives alerts when TradingView alerts are configured to send directly to the extension. For the Extension to work and process commands, your computer and the Chrome browser must be running. The Extension stores your API keys and information locally in your browser's local storage, contributing to a decentralised setup.
2. The Autoview Webhook Platform: This platform operates server-side, meaning it does not require your computer to be running to receive and execute commands. It works by receiving signals via webhooks. This makes it particularly suitable for integrating with platforms like TradingView, Trendspider, or custom scripts that can send webhook alerts. When setting up the Webhook Platform, you'll generate a unique webhook URL and can assign a key for added security.

You should choose the platform that best fits your needs and workflow.

• Side by Side Comparison
• How to install the Trading Extension
• How to Set up the Autoview Web Platform

Connecting Securely to Your Exchange

To allow Autoview to execute trades, you need to connect it to your trading exchange account using API (Application Programming Interface) keys. These keys are essentially credentials created on your exchange's website that grant specific permissions to external applications like Autoview.

Crucially, for security, you must only grant the necessary permissions for trading (placing and cancelling orders) and reading account data (balances, positions). You should explicitly NOT grant withdrawal permissions to the API keys used by Autoview.

Many exchanges, such as OKX or Bybit, support IP whitelisting for API keys. Autoview highly recommends using this feature as an additional security measure. IP whitelisting restricts API key usage to a list of approved IP addresses. You can find the necessary IP addresses for the Webhook Platform in the documentation.

Once created on your exchange, you add these API keys (the API Key and API Secret) into the configuration settings of your chosen Autoview platform (Extension or Webhook). The Web Platform allows naming keys to link them to specific webhooks. API key export/import features are available for secure backup and management.

Putting it to the Test

Before you use Autoview with live capital based on your strategy's alerts, it's essential to test your connection and command syntax. Both the Chrome Extension and Webhook Platform offer ways to test the connection after adding your API keys.

A powerful tool for verifying your command syntax is the d=1 parameter. Adding d=1 to your alert message tells Autoview to perform a "dry run", it will process the command and show you in the logs what it would have done, but it won't send the order to the exchange.

After verifying the syntax, it's recommended to perform small test trades on your live account (using a small quantity above the exchange's minimum size) to ensure end-to-end functionality. This involves placing and cancelling a simple order using Autoview commands triggered by alerts. The platform logs are vital for debugging any issues encountered during testing.

Autoview's Role in the Trading Ecosystem

Autoview plays a significant role in the automated trading ecosystem by providing the necessary automation layer for traders using external analysis and alerting tools like TradingView. It empowers traders to:

• Execute strategies automatically: Instead of manually reacting to alerts, Autoview ensures trades are placed instantly when your conditions are met.
• Implement complex orders and risk management: Autoview supports a wide range of command parameters for features like take-profit (tp=), stop-loss (sl=), sizing (q=), reduce-only orders (ro=1), trailing stops(ts=), One-Cancels-the-Other (oco=), One Sends the Other (oso=), and more. This allows for sophisticated strategy implementation and risk management.
• Connect to various exchanges: Autoview integrates with a wide range of popular exchanges, acting as a unified interface for executing trades across different platforms based on a single alerting source.
• Develop and backtest strategies: While Autoview executes, it fits into a workflow where traders develop, backtest, and refine strategies on platforms like TradingView before automating them.

A Brief History

Autoview originated with the Chrome Extension, providing a direct browser-based link for TradingView alerts. Recognizing the need for a more robust, server-side solution that didn't require a constantly running computer and could accept webhooks from multiple sources, Autoview embarked on an "Exciting Journey Towards a Web-Based Platform", leading to the development and migration efforts involving the Webhook Platform. This evolution has resulted in the dual-platform offering available today, providing users with more options for reliable automation.

Getting Started

Your first steps with Autoview involve selecting the platform (Extension or Webhook) that's right for you, creating and securely configuring API keys on your exchange, adding those keys to Autoview, and performing tests using the d=1 command and small live trades.

Autoview empowers traders by automating the execution of their defined strategies, ensuring consistency and removing emotional biases from the trading process. By acting as a reliable bridge between your analysis tools and your exchange account, it helps bring your automated trading vision to life.