OWL v5.2 — Pure contrarian. One scanner, one thesis: the crowd is wrong. Monitors crowding across top 30 assets (funding extremity, OI concentration, SM tilt). When crowding persists 4+ hours AND exhaustion signals fire (volume declining, price stalling, RSI divergence), enters AGAINST the crowd to ride the liquidation unwind. 1-2 trades per day max. Re-crowding exit: if the crowd comes back, thesis is dead, exit immediately. DSL High Water Mode (mandatory). The patient predator. v5.2: funding floor lowered from 20% to 12% so the five-factor scoring model actually runs. Added observability logging (top 3 crowding scores per scan cycle).
Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.
A direct command skips the review prompt. Inspect the source before running it.
OWL v5.2 — Pure contrarian. One scanner, one thesis: the crowd is wrong. Monitors crowding across top 30 assets (funding extremity, OI concentration, SM tilt). When crowding persists 4+ hours AND exhaustion signals fire (volume declining, price stalling, RSI divergence), enters AGAINST the crowd to ride the liquidation unwind. 1-2 trades per day max. Re-crowding exit: if the crowd comes back, thesis is dead, exit immediately. DSL High Water Mode (mandatory). The patient predator. v5.2: funding floor lowered from 20% to 12% so the five-factor scoring model actually runs. Added observability logging (top 3 crowding scores per scan cycle).
Wait for the crowd to overcommit. Wait for them to exhaust. Then eat their liquidations.
One scanner. One thesis. Every other skill in the zoo enters WITH momentum, WITH the trend, WITH smart money. OWL is the only skill that enters AGAINST the crowd. The edge: crowded trades unwind violently and predictably.
v5 is a complete rebuild. v1-v4 had 3 scanners (contrarian + momentum + correlation). The momentum and correlation scanners caused the agent to enter WITH the crowd while thinking it was contrarian. v5 has one scanner that does one thing: find crowded assets that are exhausting.
v5.2 fix: funding floor lowered from 20% → 12%. At 20%, the funding gate hard-blocked every asset before SM concentration, OI concentration, or any other signal was evaluated. Hyperliquid funding rates rarely exceed ~11% annualized in normal conditions, so the five-factor scoring model was never running. At 12%, funding must still be meaningfully elevated, but assets with strong SM/OI crowding signals can now accumulate a score. The of 8 remains the real quality gate.
minCrowdingScore
v5.2 also adds observability logging. Every scan cycle logs the top 3 crowding scores and active persistence timers to stderr (internal log only, not notifications). This lets us diagnose "is OWL seeing anything?" without changing config or asking the agent.
MANDATORY: DSL High Water Mode
OWL MUST use DSL High Water Mode. This is not optional. Do not substitute standard DSL tiers.
FALLBACK: Use tiersLegacyFallback from config until engine supports pct_of_high_water.
How OWL v5 Works
The Three Phases (all must pass before entry)
Phase 1 — CROWDING (score ≥ 8)
Scan top 30 assets every 15 minutes. Score how one-sided each asset's positioning is:
Signal
Max Points
Funding extremity (annualized rate)
4
SM concentration (leaderboard tilt)
4
OI concentration (USD-weighted)
2
SM confirms funding direction
1
Most assets score 0-3 (not crowded). Only assets scoring 8+ advance.
Phase 2 — PERSISTENCE (4+ hours)
Crowding must persist for at least 4 hours. A brief funding spike that resolves in 30 minutes is noise. True crowding builds over hours — funding stays extreme, OI keeps growing, SM stays tilted. The longer the crowding persists, the more violent the eventual unwind.
Phase 3 — EXHAUSTION (score ≥ 5)
The crowd is positioned, and they've been positioned for hours. Now: are they exhausting? Four signals:
Signal
Points
What It Means
Volume declining (recent vs 6h avg)
3
Conviction leaving — nobody new is entering
Price stalling (crowd long but price flat)
3
The trade stopped working — crowd is trapped
Volume spike without follow-through
2
Capitulation wick — someone tried to push, failed
4h RSI divergence
2
Momentum dying despite positioning
Entry
Total score (crowding + exhaustion) must be ≥ 14. Entry direction is OPPOSITE to the crowd. If the crowd is long, OWL goes short. If the crowd is short, OWL goes long.
This means OWL enters 1-2 times per day at most. Often zero. That's by design.
Hold
Every 15-minute scan re-evaluates held positions FIRST. The position holds as long as the crowd doesn't come back.
Re-Crowding Exit (unique to OWL)
If the crowd rebuilds in their original direction (re-crowding score ≥ 6), the unwind thesis is dead and the position exits immediately. This is OWL's equivalent of SCORPION's "sting" — an instant, thesis-based exit that overrides DSL.
DSL: Widest in the Zoo
Contrarian entries retrace hard before working. The crowd doesn't unwind smoothly — they fight back first. OWL needs the widest DSL bands of any skill.
Setting
Value
Compare to FOX
Phase 1 floor
4% notional (~40% ROE at 10x)
FOX: 1.5%
Phase 2 trigger
+10% ROE
FOX: +7%
T1 lock
20% of HW
FOX: 40%
85% trail at
+75% ROE
FOX: +20%
Stagnation TP
15% ROE, 120min
FOX: 10%, 45min
Time exits
All disabled
FOX: 30min hard
The tradeoff: OWL loses bigger on losers (-35 to -40% ROE) but catches crowding unwinds that produce 50-200%+ ROE when the cascade hits.
Risk Management
Rule
Value
Notes
Max positions
2
Rare, concentrated bets
Max entries/day
2 base, up to 4 on profitable days
Phase 1 floor
4% notional
Widest in the zoo
G5 per-position cap
10% of account
Wider than most — contrarian needs room
Drawdown halt
25% from peak
Max consecutive losses
2 → 180 min cooldown
Long cooldown — if the contrarian thesis failed twice, something changed
15-minute scanner interval is intentional. Crowding builds over hours, not minutes. Scanning every 3 minutes would waste tokens on data that hasn't changed. The DSL cron still runs every 3 minutes for trailing stop protection.
Notification Policy
ONLY alert: Position OPENED (asset, direction, crowding score, exhaustion signals, how long crowded), position CLOSED (DSL or re-crowding exit with reason), risk guardian triggered, critical error.
NEVER alert: Scanner found no crowding, scanner found crowding but no exhaustion, persistence tracking updates, DSL routine check, any reasoning.
All crons isolated. NO_REPLY for idle cycles.
Bootstrap Gate
Check config/bootstrap-complete.json every session. If missing:
