No code to write
A strategy is a URL that accepts a POST. TradingView's default alert placeholders are enough — no SDK, no client library, no OAuth flow to implement.
Any HTTP client worksTradovate API
The Tradovate API, and what building on it really costs.
Most people searching for the Tradovate API want one of two things: to place orders from their own code, or to stop placing them by hand. The API answers the first. It is a lot of work to answer the second, and this page is honest about which one you are.
What the API gives you
Tradovate exposes a REST API for account and order operations and a WebSocket feed for real-time events. You authenticate, hold a session, place and manage orders, and receive execution reports as they happen.
It is a competent, documented API and there is nothing wrong with building on it. If you want to write your own execution layer, want full control over order types and lifecycle, or are building something Quanify does not do, go and build it — this page is not going to pretend that is a mistake.
What is worth knowing before you start is which parts take an afternoon and which parts take a month.
Authenticate and place an orderRead the docs, get a token, POST an order. This is the afternoon.Easy
Hold a session that survivesTokens expire, sockets drop, and a revoked token retried forever is a silent outage.Hard
Resolve contracts correctlyFront months roll. A hard-coded contract id is a bug with a date on it.Hard
Handle partial fillsOne order, several executions. Miss this and your position tracking drifts.Hard
De-duplicate retransmissionsBrokers resend. Without an execution-keyed guard, a resend becomes a second position.Hard
Run it at 3amWhatever holds the session has to be awake when you are not. This is where the VPS bill starts.Ongoing
The four things that take the month
Placing an order is genuinely simple. Everything around it is where the time goes, and none of it is visible from the documentation's first page.
- Session lifecycle
- Access tokens expire and can be revoked. The naive loop retries a dead token forever and looks exactly like a network problem while placing no orders at all. You need to recognise revocation as a distinct state and re-authenticate rather than retry.
- Contract resolution
- Symbols are not contract ids, and front months roll. Resolving a symbol to the right contract — and caching it without caching it past expiry — is a small subsystem, not a lookup.
- Executions, not orders
- A single order produces multiple execution reports. Anything keyed on the order id rather than the execution id will either miss partials or double-count them. This is the single most common bug in home-built execution layers.
- Connection churn
- WebSocket sessions drop. Reconnect logic that does not evict the dead connection can leave a process holding a socket that is open and receiving nothing, which fails silently rather than loudly.
- Multiple sub-accounts
- One login can hold many funded accounts. Treating the login as the unit rather than the sub-account is what makes per-account sizing impossible later.
- Where it runs
- None of the above matters if the process is on a laptop that sleeps. A session that has to stay live needs somewhere to live.
What Quanify does with the same API
Quanify authenticates over OAuth and holds one WebSocket session per connection, server-side. Every funded sub-account under a login is addressed individually, contract resolution is cached with the expiry understood, and copies are triggered by the execution report rather than by polling a position summary.
The failure cases above are handled as named states rather than as retries. A revoked token re-authenticates instead of looping. Dead HTTP/2 connections are evicted rather than reused. Executions are de-duplicated inside a 60-second window per account, keyed on the execution — never on the order, so a partial is never mistaken for a duplicate.
If what you want is orders placed from a TradingView alert, or one account mirrored to several, this is the same work you were about to do, already done and already running somewhere that does not sleep.
No session to babysit
The connection is held server-side and re-established when it drops. There is nothing on your machine whose crash you find out about from a position you did not expect.
Nothing to keep awakeStill your own logic
You keep the strategy. Quanify is the execution layer, not the decision layer — it never decides what to trade.
Bring your own ruleWhen you should build it yourself
Genuinely, sometimes. Build against the API directly if you need order types or lifecycle control beyond entry, exit and size. Build it if your logic has to react to the order book rather than to your own fills. Build it if the thing you are making is a product rather than a workflow.
Do not build it because the first example in the docs looked easy. The example is easy. The session that has to survive a Tuesday is not, and that is the part you will still be working on in six weeks.
Common questions
Does Tradovate have an API?
Yes — a REST API for accounts and orders, plus a WebSocket feed for real-time events including execution reports. It is documented and open to Tradovate account holders.
Do I need to code to automate Tradovate?
No. Quanify connects to Tradovate over its API on your behalf, so a TradingView alert with a webhook URL is enough to place live orders. Writing against the API yourself is an option, not a requirement.
What is the hardest part of building on the Tradovate API?
Not placing orders — that part is straightforward. The time goes into session lifecycle (tokens expire and get revoked), contract resolution across front-month rolls, handling multiple execution reports per order, and keeping the process alive somewhere that is not your laptop.
Can I use the Tradovate API with prop firm accounts?
A prop-firm Tradovate login usually holds several funded sub-accounts, and each is addressable individually through the API. Treating the sub-account rather than the login as the unit is what makes per-account sizing possible.
Does Quanify use the official Tradovate API?
Yes, directly and over OAuth — no third-party bridge sits in between. Fills arrive as broker execution events rather than as screen-scraped state.
Can I use my own code alongside Quanify?
Yes. Anything that can send an HTTP POST can drive a Quanify strategy, so your own script can be the signal source while Quanify handles the broker session, sizing and risk checks.
More on automation
Automated futures trading, on accounts you already have.Automate a futures strategy on your own broker accounts. A webhook fires, Quanify risk-checks and sizes it, and the order reaches your broker.Your strategy, executed on your live accounts.Automate any futures strategy on Tradovate, NinjaTrader or TopstepX. Send a webhook; Quanify risk-checks, sizes and routes it. No VPS, no glue code.The bot is your strategy. This is the part that trades it.A trading bot is a strategy plus an executor. Quanify is the executor: your rule fires a webhook, it is risk-checked and sized, the order goes out.Automated NinjaTrader, without writing NinjaScript.Automate NinjaTrader orders from a TradingView alert or any HTTP request. No NinjaScript, no add-on, no machine left running overnight.Automating TopstepX, without writing the layer underneath.What automating a TopstepX account actually requires, what the hard parts are, and how to route a strategy to it without writing an execution layer.Your strategy, or one you can inspect.Run your own futures strategy through a webhook, or add a published Quanify strategy with its full forward record. How strategies work and are measured.Turn a TradingView alert into a live order.Send a TradingView alert to one webhook. Quanify resolves the contract, sizes the order, applies your risk rules and routes it to your broker.
Start on a simulated account.
Connect a sim or evaluation account and run the whole product against it before you point anything at live money. Nothing about the setup changes when you do.