Trding.ai

Fast Path Setup

Go from Trding.ai signup to your first automated trade in about 15 minutes. 19 numbered steps, jargon defined inline, silent-fail traps flagged.

This is the fastest path to your first automated trade — about 15 minutes. Want the WHY behind each step? Use the Comprehensive Setup Guide instead — or read it AFTER you're running.
You will connect three apps. TradingView (TV) generates the signal. TradersPost (TP) routes the signal to your broker. Alpaca is the broker that places the trade. Trding.ai sits above all three and grants you access to the indicator.
Phase 1

Create your Trding.ai account

  1. 1

    Trding.ai Go to trding.ai/pricing and pick the Ultimate tier. Automation requires Ultimate or Concierge — no lower tier can route trades.

  2. 2

    Check your email for the welcome message and click the activation link.

  3. 3

    Trding.ai Log in at trding.ai/my-portal.

    You should now see — an Ultimate badge in the top-right corner of the portal page. If you see “Signals” or “Pro” instead, your subscription didn't upgrade — email support@trding.ai before continuing.
    [screenshot: Portal Ultimate badge in top-right of my-portal page]
Phase 2

Set up TradingView

  1. 4

    TradingView Sign up at tradingview.com and subscribe to the Essential plan. The free plan cannot save webhook alerts — this is a hard TradingView limit.

  2. 5

    TradingView Enable Two-Factor Authentication. Go to Account & Billing → Two-Factor Authentication → enable via Google Authenticator or Authy.

    Silent-fail trap — Without 2FA, when you try to save your alert later, TradingView shows “Alert saving failed. Please, try again.” This is the #1 setup blocker — three pilots hit it this week. Do it now.
  3. 6

    Trding.ai In your portal, find the field labeled “Grant TradingView Access”. Paste your TradingView username (not your email — your username, from tradingview.com → your profile menu → Profile Settings). Click Submit.

    This tells Trding.ai which TradingView account to send the Trding Fire indicator to.

    You should now see — a confirmation banner in the portal. The grant email arrives in under 10 minutes.
  4. 7

    TradingView Open a chart for your ticker — start with QQQ, 1h (the default we support and have backtested). Click Indicators at the top of the chart → open the Invite-Only Scripts tab → find Trding Fire → click it to add to the chart.

    You should now see — Trding Fire loaded on the chart with a small settings row at the top.
    [screenshot: TradingView Invite-Only Scripts tab in Indicators dialog]
  5. 8

    TradingView Hover over “Trding Fire” at the top-left of the chart. A row of icons appears — click the settings gear icon (a cog wheel). Open the Inputs tab and set:

    TradersPost JSON Format: ON
    Dollar per trade: $500 (for QQQ — use current price × 1.5 for other tickers, larger cap prevents quantity-of-zero trap)
    TEST MODE: ON

    Click OK. Then save the chart layout: press Ctrl+S (or click the cloud icon at the top of the TradingView window).

    Glossary. Notional = trade size measured in dollars, not shares. $150 notional = “buy $150 worth of stock at market” — the system converts to share quantity for you. Pine = TradingView's scripting language; Trding Fire is written in it, but you never touch Pine code.
    You should now see — a “Layout saved” confirmation in the TradingView status bar.
Phase 3

Set up TradersPost

  1. 9

    TradersPost Sign up at traderspost.io and subscribe to the Starter plan ($49/mo). The free tier does not route live signals to a broker.

  2. 10

    TradersPost Go to Brokers → Connect New Broker → Alpaca → Authorize. This opens Alpaca's login page — sign in and click Allow.

    Glossary. OAuth = one-click sign-in that authorizes TradersPost to reach your Alpaca account without you sharing your Alpaca password. Alpaca hands TradersPost a scoped token instead.
    You should now see — Alpaca — Paper listed under Brokers with a green “Connected” status.
  3. 11

    TradersPost Go to Strategies → New Strategy. This is the biggest form in the whole setup — don't overthink it, just fill it in top to bottom:

    Name: Trding Fire · QQQ 1h · Paper
    Style: Systematic
    Asset class: Stocks
    Allowed tickers: Only selected tickers → add QQQ
    Checkboxes (all three): Allow auto submit · Allow live trading · Allow signal overrides
    Security: TradingView

    Click Save Strategy at the bottom.

    You should now see — your new Strategy listed on the Strategies page.
    [screenshot: TradersPost Create Strategy form with fields filled in]
  4. 12

    TradersPost Go to Subscriptions → New Subscription. Pick the Strategy you just created. For Account, choose Alpaca — Paper. Toggle all three signal-override switches ON: Position Size, Take Profit, Stop Loss. Set Enabled = ON. Click Save Subscription.

    Silent-fail trap — do NOT pick “TradersPost Paper Trader.” That's a closed sandbox that logs “Completed” but never reaches Alpaca. If you pick it by mistake, no orders will ever show up in your broker.
    You should now see — the Subscription row with a green “Enabled” pill.
Phase 4

Wire TradingView to TradersPost

  1. 13

    TradersPost Open the Strategy you created → click the Webhook button (top-right of the strategy detail page). A modal opens with the full Webhook URL.

    CRITICAL — #1 silent-fail across pilots. The URL has TWO ID segments separated by / and looks like:
    https://webhooks.traderspost.io/trading/webhook/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXX7cfd/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX2be5Notice the / between the two hex segments — the URL must include BOTH. Triple-click the URL field to select the entire URL (do NOT double-click — that only grabs the first segment). Then Ctrl+C. If you copy only the first segment, TradersPost silently 404s every signal you send. No error message. No entry in Signals log. No trades ever fire. Verify BOTH segments are in your clipboard before pasting anywhere.

    TradersPost Webhook modal · triple-click the URL field to select both segments

    Glossary. Webhook = the URL TradersPost gives you to receive signals from TradingView. JSON = the machine-readable format signals travel in — you never write it yourself; Trding Fire builds it.
  2. 14

    TradingView Open your chart and press Alt+A to create an alert. Fill in:

    Condition: Trding Fire → Any alert() function call
    Alert name: Trding Fire · QQQ 1h · Paper
    Trigger: Once Per Bar Close (controls trade frequency — one signal per completed candle, no repainting; this dropdown is halfway down the alert dialog)
    Message body: DELETE EVERYTHING — LEAVE COMPLETELY EMPTY
    Notifications tab: check Webhook URL → paste the URL from step 13. Confirm “Send plain text” is UNCHECKED — if checked, TradingView sends plain text instead of the JSON payload and TradersPost rejects every signal.

    Click Create (bottom-right of the dialog) to save the alert.

    Silent-fail trap — The Message body is the text TradingView sends when the alert fires. Because you set TradersPost JSON Format = ON in step 8, Trding Fire builds the full JSON payload itself. Any text you leave in Message body overwrites that payload — TradersPost then logs “0 of N Completed” and no order fires. Fix: delete every character from the Message body field.
    You should now see — the alert listed in the Alerts panel (right side of chart) with a green dot.
    [screenshot: TradingView alert config with Message body field EMPTY highlighted]
  3. 15

    TradingView Save the chart layout again — press Ctrl+S or click the cloud icon at the top. Alerts belong to charts, so if you don't save the chart you can lose the alert on refresh.

Phase 5

Verify and go live

  1. 16

    Alpaca Open app.alpaca.markets → Paper Trading → Account → Trading Permissions. Confirm Trading Enabled = ON.

    Paper accounts default to ON, but a small percentage of new accounts land with it OFF — verify now to avoid a silent failure later.

    ALSO enable Fractional Shares: Alpaca dashboard → top-right avatar → Account → Trading Permissions → toggle Fractional Trading = ON. Without this, any Dollar-per-trade less than 1 whole share of your ticker (e.g. $150 on a $730 QQQ share) rejects as "quantity of zero" and no trade fires.

    [screenshot: Alpaca Trading Permissions toggle set to ON]
  2. 17

    Trding.ai Open trding.ai/verify. Paste your TradersPost webhook URL into the input field and click Send Test Signal.

    You should now see — the button shows a loading spinner for 2–3 seconds, then flips to a green check with “Sent!”. If it turns red instead, the webhook URL is malformed — recopy from step 13.
    [screenshot: Verifier “Send Test Signal” button in green success state]
  3. 18

    TradersPost Open Signals (left nav).

    You should now see — a new row within 5 seconds with today's timestamp and status “Completed”. That confirms TradingView → TradersPost → Alpaca is wired end-to-end.
    If instead you see “0 of 1 Completed” — the most likely causes are (a) you left text in the alert Message body in step 14, or (b) Dollar per trade is $0 in step 8, causing a quantity of zero error (TradersPost rejects trades where the calculated share count rounds to 0). Fix step 14 or step 8, then re-send the test signal.
    [screenshot: TradersPost Signals log with successful test signal row]
  4. 19

    TradingView Open Trding Fire settings (gear icon again) → Inputs → TEST MODE = OFF → OK → Ctrl+S to save the chart.

    Glossary before you flip the switch. Risk per trade = how much you're willing to lose on any one trade — usually 1–2% of your account. Trding Fire uses your Dollar per trade setting (from step 8) to size positions — leaving it at $0 causes a quantity of zero rejection at TradersPost. Always keep Dollar per trade set to a real dollar amount.

That's it — you're live.

The next Trding Fire signal that fires on this chart will route through TradersPost and place a paper order in Alpaca.