| name | ibkr-harness |
| description | Use repo-local IBKR MCP/CLI for account, market, rulebook, canary, proposal, opportunity, and order investigations while developing the trading harness. Read/preview first; explicit current-turn broker writes use only the gated CLI. |
Updated: 2026-07-18 18:23 CEST
Contract
Use this skill when the user asks about their IBKR account, positions, exposure,
daily P&L, watchlist, quotes, calendars, option chains, daily history, scanners,
technical screens, fixed-fractional sizing, broad-market regime, dealer gamma,
market breadth, portfolio canary posture, held-name market events, protection
proposals, option-exercise opportunities, trading-rulebook status, runtime
settings/freeze state, risk-constitution capital state (ibkr policy show [--explain]), post-trade reconciliation reads (ibkr recon show /
ibkr recon backtest), order preview, order status, or order history.
Prefer MCP tools for read-only snapshots when the ibkr MCP server is available.
Use the CLI with --json when the MCP surface is not available or when a project
workflow explicitly needs CLI output. Parse JSON before answering.
Use ibkr opportunities status --json, ibkr opportunities list --json, or
ibkr opportunities refresh --json only for read-only opportunity discovery.
ibkr opportunities preview, ibkr opportunities exercise, and
ibkr opportunities ignore are outside this read-only skill contract.
ibkr policy show and ibkr recon show/backtest are read-only views of the
risk constitution and post-trade reconciliation. Every policy/recon write verb
(capital-event incl. the reconcile sign-off, override, reset-drawdown,
artefact, dismiss) is a human-only governance act the daemon rejects from
agent origins — read the views, never operate the verbs.
ibkr backtest research-opportunity ... is an offline/local research harness,
not a daemon opportunity feed and not a broker-action surface. Use it only when
the user explicitly asks to inspect scored opportunity research/backtest files.
Treat not_advice, evidence.status, evidence.reasons, feature diagnostics,
and reason diagnostics as the answer; never translate a passing/strong
diagnostic into alpha proof, a live trade recommendation, or an order
preview/place request.
Use ibkr orders history --json only as recent local order-journal evidence for
the current account/mode. It is not an IBKR Activity Statement, Flex
query/export, trade confirmation, commission ledger, closed-position ledger, or
broker-grade historical audit. Prefer ibkr orders open for current working
orders and ibkr order status ID for one order's full local audit trail.
The MCP surface remains read-oriented for agents. Explicit current-turn broker
writes, including live writes, are allowed only through the gated CLI flow:
trading status must be write-ready, preview tokens and broker checks must pass,
and the redacted CLI JSON result is the artifact. Never attempt live-trading
enablement, settings freeze changes, or destructive daemon maintenance from an
agent session. Order preview can mint a local token; token_minted is not the
same as submit_eligible.
Output Discipline
- Always preserve and report
data_type (live, delayed, frozen) when it
matters to a decision.
- If quotes expose
stale, stale_reason, price_as_of, or
session_context, surface freshness and calendar context plainly.
- Nil JSON values mean unavailable, not zero. This matters for IV, Greeks, FX,
open interest, money fields, and data-quality diagnostics.
- Render decision-making market/account data as compact Markdown tables or short
summaries with the key freshness and quality fields included.
- Use
ibkr status --json first when daemon/gateway access fails.
- For opportunity backtest/research output, say "diagnostic only" unless the
JSON explicitly clears the evidence gate; even
promising_diagnostic is not
alpha proof without locked walk-forward/live paper evidence.
- Surface
diagnostics.features[] and diagnostics.reasons[] as diagnostics,
not prescriptions.
Canonical References
This skill is the repo development wrapper. To avoid drift, detailed command
semantics and response schemas remain in the existing project references:
Open those files when a command shape, flag, or field-level contract matters.
Project Workflow
Read the root AGENTS.md before editing. For daemon/CLI/MCP/trading semantic
changes, use docs/templates/daemon-cli-trading-contract.md. For Canary SPA
changes, use docs/templates/spa-authority-matrix.md.
After daemon or CLI edits, refresh the installed daemon and capture artifacts:
make restart-daemon
ibkr status --json
Then run a command that exercises the changed behavior and include only its
redacted contract evidence in the completion message. make smoke-fast is the
default per-change live gateway gate; full make smoke is binding for
daemon/CLI/wire-path changes and release work. A skip means the live artifact
was not exercised and must be reported as such.
