AutoFirmer

Automated futures trading dashboard for prop firm accounts via Tradovate.

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VPS Setup (Windows Server 2019 / 2022)

All commands are run in PowerShell (run as Administrator).

1. Install Git

Download and install from https://git-scm.com/download/win, or via winget:

winget install --id Git.Git -e --source winget

Restart PowerShell after installing so git is on the PATH.

2. Install Node.js 22+

winget install --id OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS -e --source winget

Restart PowerShell, then verify:

node --version   # should be v22.x or higher
npm --version

3. Install Windows Build Tools (required for better-sqlite3)

better-sqlite3 compiles a native C++ module and needs the Visual Studio build tools:

npm install -g windows-build-tools

If that fails on newer Node, install manually:

• Download Build Tools for Visual Studio from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#build-tools-for-visual-studio-2022
• During install, select "Desktop development with C++"

4. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/Senofy/autofirmer.git
cd autofirmer

5. Install dependencies

npm install

6. Build

npm run build

7. Run

Development (with hot reload):

npm run dev

Production:

npm start

The app runs on port 3000. Access it at http://<your-vps-ip>:3000.

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First-time setup

On first run, the SQLite database (autotrader.sqlite) is created automatically in the project root. No migrations need to be run manually.

Open the app in your browser and add your firms through the UI:

1. Click + Add Firm on the main page
2. Enter the firm name, Tradovate username, and password
3. Go to the firm's Settings page to configure account types (prefix, profit target, consistency %, etc.)
4. Return to the main page — accounts will populate once the firm connects to Tradovate

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AutoBuyer (browser automation)

The AutoBuyer page drives a real browser to buy and reset prop-firm accounts. It is three pieces, and all three must be running:

Piece	What it does
the dashboard	Defines automations, queues runs, shows progress
extension/	A Chromium extension that reads the broker page and measures elements
clicker/runner.py	A desktop process that moves the real mouse and keyboard

Automations are declared in lib/automations.ts — one entry per firm, with the steps inside. Adding a button means editing that file; the page and the runner pick it up from the server.

1. Load the extension

chrome://extensions → enable Developer mode → Load unpacked → select the extension folder.

Chrome does not reload an unpacked extension when its files change. After pulling updates, click the reload icon on its card — the dashboard shows the version it sees, and a mismatch means the reload did not take.

Adding a new firm also means adding its host to host_permissions in extension/manifest.json and reloading. Without it the extension cannot read that site, and every step fails to locate.

2. Install the clicker

cd clicker
pip install -r requirements.txt

See clicker/README.md for the per-platform notes — display scaling and foreground lock both matter on Windows — and for the verification sequence to run before letting it click anything on a new machine.

3. Start the runner

python clicker\runner.py

Leave it running. It reports in every two seconds, and the dashboard greys out the automation buttons when it is not there. A running Python process does not reload when the source changes, so restart it after pulling updates; the dashboard warns when its version is behind.

Running it

Turn Page capture on from the AutoBuyer page, then press an automation's button. Progress appears per step, and Stop halts a run between steps.

The browser must be visible and frontmost while a run is in flight — the clicks are real OS-level input, so the machine cannot be used for anything else, and a dialog stealing focus fails the step. That makes an RDP session a poor host: disconnecting can suspend the desktop and break clicks in ways that are hard to diagnose.

Keeping it running

setup-windows.bat offers to set this up for you at step 6. To enable it later, or after declining:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\install-autostart.ps1

That registers PM2 for both processes and two scheduled tasks — one to start everything at logon, one to check master for updates every 5 minutes. It needs no elevation and is safe to re-run; it replaces the tasks rather than stacking them up.

pm2 list                 # what is running
pm2 logs autofirmer      # dashboard output
pm2 logs clicker         # runner output

Why scheduled tasks and not a Windows service. The clicker sends real mouse and keyboard input and has to own a desktop. A service runs in session 0, which has none, so the clicks would go nowhere. Both tasks therefore run as you with "run only when user is logged on" — which also means an unattended reboot leaves the instance down until somebody logs in.

To start everything by hand without waiting for a logon:

node scripts\start-all.mjs

start-autofirmer.bat still runs the dashboard in a visible window without PM2, which is the easier thing to watch when a build is misbehaving.

Firewall

To restrict port 3000 to a specific trusted IP only:

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "AutoFirmer" -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 3000 -RemoteAddress <your-ip> -Action Allow

Or open it to all inbound (less secure):

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "AutoFirmer" -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 3000 -Action Allow

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Updating

Once auto-start is installed, nothing here is manual. Every 5 minutes the update task fetches master, and when it has moved it pulls, reinstalls dependencies if package-lock.json or clicker/requirements.txt changed, rebuilds, restarts AutoFirmer, and restarts the clicker if anything under clicker/ changed.

A failed build is never deployed. The build runs before anything restarts, so a broken push leaves the previous build serving and logs the failure instead.

Everything it does is appended to scripts/update.log. To see what it would do without touching anything:

node scripts\update-check.mjs --dry-run

To apply an update immediately rather than waiting for the next check:

node scripts\update-check.mjs

The two things that still do not reload themselves

• The extension — click reload on its card in chrome://extensions.
• The scheduler is fine now. It persists to the settings table and resumes after a restart, so an update no longer silently stops automated trading.

The dashboard reports the version it sees from the extension and the runner, and warns when either is behind. Most AutoBuyer bugs that look mysterious are the extension still running the previous code.