Moving from a backtest to live automation is a software release, not a button click. The system must operate with incomplete data, asynchronous orders, connection failures, broker constraints, and human oversight.
Research evidence
Document data sources, costs, fill assumptions, selection decisions, optimization history, out-of-sample results, and known limitations. Confirm that no future or revised data leaks into decisions.
Platform and broker fit
Verify permissions, account type, symbol mapping, quantity rules, sessions, supported order types, stop distances, pacing limits, and data subscriptions. Test the exact environment intended for operation.
Order lifecycle and reconciliation
Handle submission, acknowledgement, partial fills, fills, cancels, rejections, replacements, disconnects, and unknown states. Define how strategy state is reconciled with actual account positions and working orders.
Safeguards
Enforce maximum size, loss, activity, instruments, sessions, and allowed accounts. Add stale-data detection, duplicate-signal prevention, a kill switch, manual intervention, and a safe response to missing dependencies.
Observability and operations
Log decisions and identifiers, monitor health, notify operators of exceptions, document startup and shutdown, and make rollback possible. Decide who responds, what evidence they need, and how state is recovered.
Controlled rollout
Use playback, simulation, demo, and limited live exposure as separate evidence stages. Compare expected and actual behavior at each stage. Do not expand exposure merely because the software stayed online.
The Trading Bot Production-Readiness Review provides a written assessment with critical, important, and optional findings. Use the AI-Built Trading System Audit first when source correctness remains uncertain.
Risk note
Production readiness is not a guarantee of profitability, safety, fills, uptime, or regulatory compliance. Clients remain responsible for trading decisions, permissions, account controls, and deployment.