Risk Management
Deterministic, rule-based risk controls — per-symbol and portfolio limits, atomic reservations, a kill switch, and staged trading modes.
A deterministic risk engine
Every order in Aegis passes through a deterministic risk engine: given the same inputs, it always reaches the same decision. Risk is enforced by rules, not by a model's guess, so you can reason about exactly why an order was allowed, resized, or blocked.
Risk state is anchored to an append-only double-entry ledger and an immutable audit trail — balances are derived from immutable sums, so reservations and exposure cannot silently drift.
Guardrails
- Per-symbol limits — cap exposure on any single market so no one symbol can dominate the book.
- Portfolio limits — cap total exposure across everything you trade.
- Atomic reservations — capital is reserved atomically before an order goes out, so two orders can't double-spend the same balance.
- Kill switch — halt trading instantly; open automation stops acting on new signals.
- Automation off by default — strategies generate no live orders until you explicitly opt in.
- News-driven escalation — an opt-in, off-by-default control can raise risk to CLOSE_ONLY based on deterministic news classification. See Alerts & Telegram.
Trading modes
Aegis recommends a staged progression, so a strategy proves itself before real capital is involved:
| Mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| PAPER | Runs against a simulated $10,000 account — no exchange, no real funds. |
| TESTNET | Trades on the exchange's test network with real order flow but no real money. |
| REAL | Live trading with real funds. Enabling REAL is a deploy-time decision, not a public toggle. |
The recommended path is PAPER → TESTNET → REAL. Validate a strategy in Backtesting and PAPER first, then move up only when the results hold.
Non-custodial by design
Risk controls sit on top of a non-custodial foundation: on a CEX the API key is trade-only (withdrawals disabled), and on a DEX you sign every transaction yourself. Aegis can stop trading, but it can never move your funds off the exchange.