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Strategy Creator Guide

This section is for creators who want to build, customize, and publish trading strategies in OctoBot.

What You Can Create​

A strategy in OctoBot is a profile — a self-contained folder that bundles everything needed to define how the bot trades: which trading mode to use, which evaluators analyze the market, which pairs to trade, on which exchanges, and with what risk settings. Creating a new strategy means creating and configuring a profile.

Beyond profiles, you can also build custom trading modes (the logic that decides when and how to trade), custom evaluators (market analysis tools — technical, social, or AI-based), and combine existing evaluators into new strategy compositions without writing any code.

How Strategies Work​

OctoBot strategies are built from three layers:

  1. Evaluators analyze the market and produce signals on a -1 to +1 scale
  2. Strategies combine evaluator signals into a single trading decision
  3. Trading Modes execute trades based on that decision

The profile ties these layers together by declaring which trading mode is active, which evaluators feed into it, and how they are configured.

Profiles​

A profile lives as a folder under user/profiles/ and contains three things:

  • profile.json — the profile's identity and trading configuration: which exchanges are enabled, which cryptocurrency pairs to trade, the reference market, risk level, and whether to run in live or simulated mode.
  • tentacles_config.json — which tentacles are active. Only one trading mode can be active per profile. Evaluators are additive — a strategy evaluator aggregates signals from multiple TA, social, or real-time evaluators.
  • specific_config/ — per-tentacle JSON configuration files. This is where timeframes live (in the strategy evaluator's config, not in profile.json), along with order sizing, stop-loss behavior, DSL scripts, and any other tentacle-specific settings.

Creating a strategy​

Creating a new strategy means assembling a profile:

  1. Pick a trading mode — grid trading, DCA, daily signal-based, index rebalancing, AI-powered, or a custom scripted mode. Only one is active per profile.
  2. Pick evaluators — choose which TA indicators (RSI, MACD, Bollinger, etc.), social feeds (Fear & Greed, news), or AI evaluators contribute signals. Enable them in tentacles_config.json.
  3. Configure timeframes — set them in the strategy evaluator's specific config (e.g., SimpleStrategyEvaluator.json has a required_time_frames field).
  4. Set trading pairs and exchanges — define which pairs to trade and on which exchanges in profile.json. Exchange credentials stay in the global config.json and are never included in the profile.
  5. Tune risk and sizing — adjust the risk parameter (0.0–1.0) and trading mode-specific settings like order size, stop-loss percentage, or grid spread.

The easiest way to start is to duplicate an existing profile — OctoBot assigns a fresh ID and clears the read-only flag so you can modify it freely.

Profile configuration​

The profile.json file separates metadata from trading config.

Metadata includes the profile's unique id (used internally to select it — not the folder name), a human-readable name, description, complexity and risk ratings, and several behavioral flags:

  • read_only — prevents editing and deletion. Built-in profiles ship with this set to true.
  • hidden — hides the profile from the UI. Used for profiles that should only appear under specific conditions.
  • auto_update — when enabled, the profile periodically polls OctoBot Cloud using its slug and re-downloads if the published strategy has changed. This is how managed strategy updates are distributed to users. The profile's specific_config/ and tentacles_config.json are refreshed, but the user's exchange credentials and profile.json metadata are never overwritten.
  • imported — set automatically when a profile is installed from a zip or the cloud.

Trading config defines what and how to trade:

  • crypto-currencies — which pairs are enabled (e.g., "Bitcoin": {"enabled": true, "pairs": ["BTC/USDT"]}).
  • exchanges — which exchanges to use and their type (spot, margin, futures). The profile only controls enabled and exchange-type; credentials live in the global config and are never exported with a profile.
  • trader / trader-simulator — toggle between live and simulated trading. The simulator section includes starting portfolio and fee settings.
  • trading — the reference market (e.g., "USDT"), risk level, and pause state.

Sharing and publishing​

Profiles are designed to be portable. When exported, disabled exchanges are stripped and credentials are never included, so a profile can be shared safely. Profiles bundled inside the tentacles/profiles/ directory ship with their own tentacles_config.json and specific_config/, making them immediately usable out of the box.