📈 Alpaca Trading Skill

Command-line trading made simple. Execute trades, monitor positions, and manage your portfolio directly from your terminal using Alpaca's powerful API.

Why This Skill?

For developers and traders who want:

✅ Speed: Execute trades faster than clicking through a web interface
✅ Automation: Script your trading strategies with simple shell commands
✅ Transparency: See exactly what commands are being run
✅ Control: Manage everything from your terminal without context switching
✅ Safety: Test with paper trading before risking real money

What makes this different: Unlike GUI-based trading platforms, apcacli gives you programmatic access to your Alpaca account through a clean, efficient command-line interface. Perfect for developers, algorithmic traders, and terminal enthusiasts.

Quick Start (5 Minutes)

Step 1: Install apcacli

# Install Rust (if needed - skip if already installed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Install apcacli
cargo install apcacli

# Verify it works
apcacli --help

Step 2: Get Your API Keys (Free)

Sign up at Alpaca Markets (free account)
Navigate to your dashboard
Generate paper trading API keys (no credit card required)
Copy your APCA_API_KEY_ID and APCA_API_SECRET_KEY

Step 3: Configure Environment

# For Paper Trading (start here - it's free and safe!)
export APCA_API_KEY_ID='your_paper_key_id'
export APCA_API_SECRET_KEY='your_paper_secret_key'

# Add to your shell profile for persistence
echo "export APCA_API_KEY_ID='your_paper_key_id'" >> ~/.zshrc
echo "export APCA_API_SECRET_KEY='your_paper_secret_key'" >> ~/.zshrc

Step 4: Try Your First Command

# Check your account
apcacli account get

# See if the market is open
apcacli market clock

# You're ready to trade! 🎉

What You Can Do

💰 Trading Operations

Execute market, limit, stop, and trailing-stop orders
Buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto
Cancel orders individually or in bulk
Close positions partially or completely

📊 Portfolio Management

View all open positions with real-time P/L
Check account balance and buying power
Track daily and total profit/loss (color-coded!)
Review position history

📈 Market Data

Get asset information and availability
Check market clock and trading hours
Search for symbols
Access real-time quotes through Alpaca's API

🔔 Real-time Monitoring

Stream account events (orders, fills, updates)
Monitor trade executions live
Track portfolio changes in real-time

⚡ Advanced Features

Shell completion for faster command entry
Scriptable automation for strategies
Session management for multiple accounts
Output formatting (JSON, colored text)

Example Workflows

Buy Your First Stock

# 1. Check your buying power
apcacli account get

# 2. Verify the market is open
apcacli market clock

# 3. Buy $1000 worth of AAPL at market price
apcacli order submit buy AAPL --value 1000

# 4. Confirm your position
apcacli position list

What just happened?

You checked your account had funds available
You verified the market was open (trades only execute during market hours)
You submitted a market order for $1000 worth of Apple stock
You confirmed the position appeared in your portfolio

Set a Limit Order

# Buy 10 shares of Microsoft, but only if price drops to $420
apcacli order submit buy MSFT --quantity 10 --limit-price 420

# Check if your order is still open
apcacli order list

# Cancel it if you change your mind
apcacli order cancel <ORDER_ID>

Why limit orders? Market orders execute immediately at current price (fast but unpredictable). Limit orders only execute at your specified price or better (slower but controlled).

Protect Your Position with a Stop Loss

# You own 10 shares of AAPL and want to protect gains
# Set a trailing stop 5% below the current price
apcacli order submit sell AAPL --quantity 10 --trail-percent 5

# If AAPL drops 5% from its peak, your shares auto-sell
# But if it keeps rising, the stop price rises with it

Risk management 101: Never hold a position without a stop loss. Trailing stops let you capture upside while limiting downside.

Daily Portfolio Check

#!/bin/bash
# Save as ~/check-portfolio.sh

echo "📊 Daily Portfolio Report - $(date)"
echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
echo ""

echo "💰 Account Status"
apcacli account get
echo ""

echo "📈 Open Positions"
apcacli position list
echo ""

echo "📝 Recent Activity"
apcacli account activity | head -10

# Make it executable
chmod +x ~/check-portfolio.sh

# Run daily
~/check-portfolio.sh

Command Cheat Sheet

What You Want	Command
Account & Balance
View account details	`apcacli account get`
Check account activity	`apcacli account activity`
Market Data
Check if market is open	`apcacli market clock`
Get asset info	`apcacli asset get SYMBOL`
Search for symbol	`apcacli asset search QUERY`
Trading
Buy with $ amount	`apcacli order submit buy SYMBOL --value AMOUNT`
Buy X shares at market	`apcacli order submit buy SYMBOL --quantity X`
Buy with limit price	`apcacli order submit buy SYMBOL --quantity X --limit-price PRICE`
Sell shares	`apcacli order submit sell SYMBOL --quantity X`
Set trailing stop	`apcacli order submit sell SYMBOL --quantity X --trail-percent 5`
Order Management
List all orders	`apcacli order list`
Get order details	`apcacli order get ORDER_ID`
Cancel an order	`apcacli order cancel ORDER_ID`
Cancel all orders	`apcacli order cancel-all`
Portfolio
List positions	`apcacli position list`
Get position details	`apcacli position get SYMBOL`
Close position	`apcacli position close SYMBOL`
Close all positions	`apcacli position close-all`
Monitoring
Stream account events	`apcacli stream account`
Stream trades	`apcacli stream trades`

Safety First ⚠️

ALWAYS start with paper trading:

Paper trading uses fake money - perfect for learning
You get $100,000 virtual cash to experiment with
All features work exactly like live trading
Zero risk, full learning

Before going live:

Test all commands with paper trading
Understand order types (market vs limit vs stop)
Know the risks of trading
Never invest money you can't afford to lose
Set stop losses on every position
Double-check symbols and quantities

Security:

Never share your API keys
Store keys in environment variables, never in code
Use paper keys for testing, live keys only for real trading
Verify APCA_API_BASE_URL is correct before trading

Installation for ClawdHub

Once published on ClawdHub, users can install this skill with:

# Install the skill
clawhub install alpaca-trading

# Install the underlying tool
cargo install apcacli

# Set up API keys
export APCA_API_KEY_ID='your_key'
export APCA_API_SECRET_KEY='your_secret'

Manual installation:

# Clone or copy to your skills directory
cp -r alpaca-trading ~/.clawdbot/skills/

Requirements

Requirement	Details	How to Get
apcacli	The CLI tool itself	`cargo install apcacli`
Rust 1.71+	Required to install apcacli	rustup.rs
Alpaca account	Free paper or funded live	alpaca.markets
API keys	`APCA_API_KEY_ID` + `APCA_API_SECRET_KEY`	Generate in Alpaca dashboard

Troubleshooting

"apcacli: command not found"

Solution: Install apcacli with cargo install apcacli. Make sure ~/.cargo/bin is in your PATH.

"Missing APCA_API_KEY_ID"

Solution: Export your environment variables:

export APCA_API_KEY_ID='your_key'
export APCA_API_SECRET_KEY='your_secret'

Orders not executing

Possible causes:

Market is closed (check apcacli market clock)
Insufficient buying power (check apcacli account get)
Invalid symbol (verify with apcacli asset get SYMBOL)
Account restrictions

How do I switch from paper to live?

# Paper (default - no URL needed)
export APCA_API_KEY_ID='pk_...'
export APCA_API_SECRET_KEY='sk_...'

# Live (set URL to production)
export APCA_API_BASE_URL='https://api.alpaca.markets'
export APCA_API_KEY_ID='LIVE_KEY'
export APCA_API_SECRET_KEY='LIVE_SECRET'

⚠️ Double-check the URL! Wrong URL = trading with wrong account.

Learn More

Resources

apcacli Repository - Full documentation and source code
Alpaca Docs - Trading platform documentation
API Reference - Complete API specifications
Paper Trading Dashboard - Web interface for your paper account
apca Rust Crate - The underlying library powering apcacli

Community & Support

apcacli issues: GitHub Issues
Alpaca support: support@alpaca.markets
Alpaca community: Alpaca Forum

About This Skill

Skill Type: CLI Tool Integration Tool: apcacli (Rust-based Alpaca CLI) Created for: ClawdHub / Claude Code License: GPL-3.0 (following apcacli's license)

Credits:

apcacli created by d-e-s-o
Built on the apca Rust crate for Alpaca API interactions
Skill documentation by the ClawdHub community

Disclaimer

This skill provides tools for trading financial instruments. Trading involves substantial risk of loss.

This skill is educational and informational only
Not financial advice - do your own research
Start with paper trading to learn risk-free
Only trade with money you can afford to lose
Understand the risks before trading real money

By using this skill, you acknowledge that trading decisions are your own responsibility.

Ready to start? Install apcacli and get your free paper trading account today! 🚀

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📈 Alpaca Trading Skill

Why This Skill?

Quick Start (5 Minutes)

Step 1: Install apcacli

Step 2: Get Your API Keys (Free)

Step 3: Configure Environment

Step 4: Try Your First Command

What You Can Do

💰 Trading Operations

📊 Portfolio Management

📈 Market Data

🔔 Real-time Monitoring

⚡ Advanced Features

Example Workflows

Buy Your First Stock

Set a Limit Order

Protect Your Position with a Stop Loss

Daily Portfolio Check

Command Cheat Sheet

Safety First ⚠️

Installation for ClawdHub

Requirements

Troubleshooting

"apcacli: command not found"

"Missing APCA_API_KEY_ID"

Orders not executing

How do I switch from paper to live?

Learn More

Resources

Community & Support

About This Skill

Disclaimer

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