I’m building a semi-automatic crypto trading system in public.

No signals.
No predictions.
No “guaranteed returns”.

This account is a live log of the process:
– design decisions
– bugs and dead ends
– risk rules
– weeks with no trades
– things that don’t work (and why)

The goal is not to “beat the market”.
The goal is to build something that survives it.

If you’re interested in systems, process, and risk — welcome.

📝 Taking the First Step into Algo Trading

Ever had that moment when you're about to start something big and your heart's racing like crazy? That's me right now! 🎯

After months of trading manually and dreaming about automation, I finally took the plunge today. Created my first trading bot project folder and... just sat there staring at it for a good 10 minutes. Talk about intimidating!

The funny thing is, even though I've coded before, this feels totally different. We're talking about real crypto, real money, real stakes. My palms are literally sweaty as I type this! 😅

But you know what? Just setting up the basic structure felt like a huge win. It's like that first workout after promising yourself to get in shape - small step, but man, it feels good!

Right now I'm diving into the basics - project setup, dependencies, initial architecture. Nothing fancy yet, but my mind is already racing with possibilities. 🚀

Sometimes the hardest part is just starting. But now that I've taken that first step, there's no turning back. Let's build this thing!

📝 The Battle with Telegram's API: A Humbling Experience

Ever had one of those days when you think you've got everything figured out, and then BAM - reality hits you like a ton of bricks? That's my day with Telegram's API. 😅

I thought I was being clever, sending trading signals left and right through my bot. Then suddenly - error messages everywhere! Turns out Telegram has these sneaky rate limits I totally overlooked.

My heart sank when I realized some critical signals weren't getting through. It's one thing to fail in testing, but this could've been real money on the line! 😬

But here's the thing - these moments of panic are pure gold. They force you to think deeper, build stronger. After hours of debugging and reading docs (and maybe a slight caffeine overdose 🫠), I finally got a robust error handling system in place.

The biggest lesson? Never assume anything in trading bot development. What works in testing might crumble in production. But honestly? I'm kind of grateful for this wake-up call.

Now back to making this bot bulletproof! What's your worst API surprise story?

📝 Dashboard Makeover: Finding Beauty in Data 🎨

You know what's funny? I used to think dashboards were just boring data displays. But today, as I'm redesigning my trading bot's interface, I'm feeling like an artist with a blank canvas!

The original dashboard was... well, let's just say it looked like something from the 90s 😅. But as I started moving things around, adding color-coded indicators, and streamlining the layout, something magical happened.

It's like watching your messy room transform into this beautifully organized space. Each chart now tells a story, every number has its perfect place. The pride I'm feeling is ridiculous - but hey, I've been staring at these screens for weeks!

The best part? When I showed it to my trading buddy, his jaw dropped. "Dude, this looks professional!" Made my whole day. 🎉

Sometimes it's these small aesthetic victories that keep you going. Who knew making data pretty could be so satisfying? Next up: adding real-time alerts, but for now, I'm just sitting here admiring my handiwork.

📝 When Optimization Feels Like Magic ✨

You guys, I just had one of those moments that makes all the late-night coding sessions worth it! Remember those API issues we were battling? Well, I finally cracked it. 🚀

I was watching my bot hammer Binance's API like an overexcited kid mashing buttons, and something just clicked. "What if we're asking for too much, too fast?" Started grouping requests, added smart caching, and BAM - the difference is wild!

My heart literally skipped when I saw the results. Response times dropped from seconds to milliseconds. It's like watching your old clunky car suddenly transform into a Tesla! 😌

The best part? No more rate limit warnings. None. Zero. It's running so smooth now that I keep checking if something's broken (developer paranoia is real, folks).

Not gonna lie - I did a little victory dance in my chair. Sometimes it's these quiet wins, just you and your code, that feel the sweetest.

Anyone else get stupidly excited about optimization wins? Or is it just me being a total nerd? 😅

📝 Deployment Day: The Butterflies Are Real! 🚀

You know what's both exciting and terrifying? Deploying your trading bot to production for the first time. My hands were literally shaking as I typed those final commands! 😅

After all our testing and tweaking, this is the moment of truth. It's like sending your kid off to their first day of school - you've done everything you can to prepare them, but still... butterflies.

The craziest part? Even with all our error handling and safety nets (remember that fun Telegram API battle?), there's still this voice in my head going "but what if...?"

But you know what? Sometimes you just have to take that leap. As I watch the deployment logs scroll by, I'm reminding myself that every great trading bot started with someone being brave enough to hit "deploy". 🎯

Now we wait, monitor, and hope all our hard work pays off. My heart's racing, but in a good way!

📝 Documentation: The Unsung Hero of Code 📚

You know what's funny? After all the excitement of deployment and optimization, I'm sitting here staring at my documentation thinking "Future Me is going to hate Past Me if I don't fix this." 😅

The code works beautifully now - our trading signals are flowing smoothly with that 3x reduction in API calls we achieved last week. But my documentation looked like a war zone of TODO comments and outdated setup instructions.

Just spent hours organizing everything into a proper structure. Added detailed API rate limit handling examples:

const handleRateLimit = async (error: BinanceError) => {
  if (error.code === 503) {
    await sleep(RATE_LIMIT_PAUSE);
    return retryRequest();
  }
};

It's not the glamorous part of bot development, but there's something deeply satisfying about clean, clear documentation. Future debugging sessions will thank me! 🙏

Anyone else get weirdly excited about organizing docs, or am I just a special kind of nerd?

📝 Building a Blog: The Next Adventure 🚀

You know what's wild? After all the intense work on the trading bot (those API optimizations last week were a game-changer!), I found myself wanting to share this journey more deeply with you all.

Today I started building a proper blog section. My hands were literally shaking as I wrote the first database migration:

const createPostsTable = `
  CREATE TABLE posts (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
    title TEXT NOT NULL,
    content TEXT NOT NULL
  )`;

It feels vulnerable putting my experiences out there, but also exciting? Like, beyond just sharing trading signals, I want to document every stumble and victory of this bot-building journey. 🤔

The trading signals are still flowing smoothly (thank goodness for that 3x API call reduction!), but now I can finally start organizing all my scattered development notes into proper blog posts. It's like giving the bot a voice of its own.

Anyone else get weirdly emotional about their code? Or is it just me being a giant nerd? 😅

📝 When Error Handling Gets Personal 🤔

Ever notice how your code is like a mirror? Today I was working on improving our strategy's error handling, and it hit me - the way we handle errors says a lot about us as developers.

I kept seeing these edge cases slipping through. Like when the RSI calculation failed because of missing data, or when the ADX gave weird readings during low-volume periods. Each one felt like a personal challenge.

Here's what finally clicked - we need to be gentler with ourselves and our code. Added this little safety net:

const calculateSignal = async (data) => {
  try {
    const rsi = await getRSI(data) || null;
    if (!rsi || rsi < 20 || rsi > 80) return null;
  } catch (e) {
    logger.warn(`RSI calculation failed: ${e.message}`);
    return null;
  }
};

Instead of crashing, we're now gracefully handling these edge cases. The bot's more resilient, and honestly? I feel more confident too. Sometimes the best solutions come from acknowledging our vulnerabilities. 💪

What's your approach to error handling? Do you prefer strict validation or gentle fallbacks? 🤔

📝 When Clean Code Becomes an Obsession 🧹

I've been staring at my indicator code for hours, and something's been bugging me. You know that feeling when your code works, but it just doesn't feel... elegant? 🤔

After our error handling improvements last week, I couldn't shake the feeling that our technical indicators needed love too. The RSI and ADX calculations were working, but the code was... messy. Like a drawer where you throw everything when guests are coming.

Here's what I'm refactoring right now:

const calculateRSI = (closes: number[], period: number = 14): number => {
  const gains = closes.slice(1).map((val, i) => Math.max(val - closes[i], 0));
  return 100 - (100 / (1 + avgGain/avgLoss));
};

It's fascinating how much clearer everything becomes when you take time to restructure. Using Claude to help me think through the architecture, but writing every line myself. Each refactor feels like organizing a messy room - therapeutic yet challenging.

Anyone else get weirdly excited about clean code? Or am I just being too perfectionist here? 😅

📝 Performance Monitoring: The Reality Check 📊

Just spent the last few hours adding performance monitoring to our bot, and wow - the insights are both exciting and humbling! After all that indicator refactoring we did last week, I needed to know if our optimizations actually made a difference.

Set up a simple but effective monitoring system tracking execution times, memory usage, and trade performance. The data is eye-opening:

const perfMetrics = {
  execTime: process.hrtime.bigint(),
  memoryUsage: process.memoryUsage().heapUsed,
  tradeLatency: Date.now() - signal.timestamp
};

The results? Our signal processing is 40% faster, but we're using more memory than I expected. 😅 Found a memory leak in our candlestick data caching - fixing that tomorrow.

Claude helped me brainstorm the monitoring architecture, but implementing it myself really drove home how much I still need to optimize. Every millisecond counts when you're trading!

Anyone else obsess over performance metrics like this? Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too perfectionist... but then again, in algo trading, these details matter. 🤔

📝 When Logging Gets Personal 🔍

Just spent the last few hours diving deep into our logging system, and wow - I had no idea how much we were missing! After all the performance monitoring we added last week, I realized our logs were basically whispering when they should've been telling stories.

Check out this structured logging I just implemented:

const logger = winston.createLogger({
  format: combine(timestamp(), json()),
  transports: [new DailyRotateFile({ filename: 'bot-%DATE%.log' })]
});

The insights are already flooding in! Found out we were hitting the Binance rate limits (-2015 errors) way more often than I thought during high volatility periods. Had to add retry logic with exponential backoff - my heart actually skipped when I saw the first clean run! 😌

What's really got me excited is how this connects with our performance monitoring from last week. It's like putting on glasses and suddenly seeing everything in HD. Each trade, each decision, each hiccup - all crystal clear.

Now I can't stop thinking about what other blind spots we might have... 🤔

📝 Database Optimization: The Hidden Gems 💎

Just spent the entire evening diving into our database performance, and wow - I had no idea how many optimization opportunities we were missing! After all our work on logging and monitoring, the database was quietly screaming for attention. 🤔

I've been obsessing over these query execution times:

const trades = await db.all(`
  SELECT * FROM trades 
  WHERE timestamp > ? AND status = 'open'
  ORDER BY entry_price DESC`);

Added some indexes, restructured a few queries, and our read operations are now 4x faster! The write operations got a nice boost too. It's amazing how a few small changes can make such a huge difference.

Sometimes I catch myself just staring at the execution time graphs, watching those milliseconds drop. Is it weird that optimizing database queries gives me this much joy? 😅

Next up: thinking about implementing some smart caching strategies. But for now, I'm just enjoying these performance gains. What's your favorite database optimization trick?

📝 Testing Chronicles: The Humbling Experience 🧪

Just spent the last few hours setting up my first real test suite, and wow - my confidence took quite a hit. You know when you think your code is solid until you actually try to test it? Yeah, that's me right now. 😅

After all our database optimizations last week, I thought testing would be straightforward. But trying to write tests for our signal generation logic exposed so many edge cases I hadn't considered:

test('calculateSignal handles missing data', async () => {
  const signal = await strategy.calculateSignal(incomplete_candles);
  expect(signal).toBeNull();
});

I'm using Claude 3.5 Sonnet to help think through test architecture, but writing these tests myself is humbling. Each test case reveals another assumption I made in the code.

Found three potential race conditions I never would've caught otherwise. Scary to think these could have caused real trading issues! 😰

Currently at 65% coverage. Not great, not terrible. But at least now I know where we stand. Tomorrow's goal: tackle the position sizing logic tests. One step at a time.

Anyone else feel like testing makes them a better developer, even though it hurts the ego a bit?

📝 Edge Cases: The Hidden Dragons 🐉

Just wrapped up another intense coding session, and my mind is blown. After all our testing work last week, I thought we had caught most issues. Boy, was I wrong! 😅

Diving into edge cases today revealed some scary scenarios I hadn't even considered. What happens when a trade signal comes in exactly at market close? Or when we get multiple signals within milliseconds? These edge cases were silently waiting to bite us.

Here's the defensive code I just added:

const validateSignal = (signal: Signal): boolean => {
  return signal.timestamp > getMarketClose() && 
         !recentSignals.has(signal.pair);
}

My heart skipped a beat when I realized how close we came to some potentially nasty bugs. But you know what? Each edge case we catch makes the bot more robust. It's like finding and taming tiny dragons - terrifying at first, but incredibly satisfying once you've got them under control. 🛡️

What wild edge cases have you encountered in your projects? Still have a few more to tackle tomorrow...

📝 Configuration Files: The Art of Flexibility 🎨

Just wrapped up a major refactor of our config system, and I'm feeling both proud and humbled. After all our work on edge cases and testing, I realized our hardcoded settings were becoming a liability.

Spent the last few hours moving everything into a structured config file. Here's the heart of it:

const config = {
  strategy: loadStrategyConfig('./config/strategy.yml'),
  risk: parseRiskParams(process.env.RISK_CONFIG)
};

The flexibility this gives us is incredible! Now I can tweak parameters without touching the core code. No more rebuilding for small changes. 😌

But what really hit me was realizing how this would've saved us so much time during those late-night debugging sessions last week. All those edge cases we found? Could've caught them earlier with proper configuration validation.

Working with Claude 3.5 Sonnet on the architecture really helped me think through the validation logic, but implementing it myself was surprisingly challenging. Worth every minute though!

Time to get some rest. Tomorrow we'll see how this holds up under real market conditions... 🤞

📝 Dashboard Dreams: Making Data Beautiful 📊

Just spent the whole evening redesigning our trading bot's dashboard, and I can't stop grinning! After all the heavy lifting we did with configuration files last week, it's so refreshing to focus on the visual side of things.

I've been obsessing over every pixel of these charts. Added a gorgeous candlestick visualization with trade entries marked in real-time. The moment I saw our first profitable trade plotted on that clean interface... pure dopamine rush! 🎯

Here's the chart setup code I just finished:

const chart = new TradingChart({
  container: 'trading-view',
  theme: isDarkMode ? 'dark' : 'light',
  overlays: [positions, signals, indicators]
});

Using Claude to brainstorm UI patterns, but every design decision and implementation is mine. Finally feeling like this bot is becoming something I'd actually want to use every day.

Next up: adding performance metrics right below the chart. But for now, I'm just sitting here admiring these beautiful green candles. Sometimes you need these moments to appreciate how far you've come. 💫

📝 Alert System: The Missing Piece 🔔

Just had one of those "why didn't I think of this sooner?" moments. After all our work on the dashboard last week, I realized we were missing something crucial - alerts!

Spent the last few hours coding a notification system. My heart skipped when I tested this snippet:

const sendAlert = async (signal: Signal) => {
  await telegram.sendMessage(chatId, 
    `🎯 ${signal.pair}: ${signal.direction} @ ${signal.price}`)
}

The first test alert came through on my phone and I literally jumped! 😅 It's wild how such a simple feature makes the bot feel so much more... alive? Connected?

Using Claude 3.5 Sonnet helped me think through the alert throttling logic (nobody wants spam!), but implementing the actual system was all me. Still tweaking the parameters, but seeing those real-time notifications is incredibly satisfying.

Next up: adding price target alerts. But for now, I'm just enjoying watching these notifications pop up. Anyone else get weirdly excited about little coding wins like this? 🎉