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Quickstart

Key, connect, track tickers, first answer: five minutes end to end.

Five minutes from nothing to a first answer about your own tickers. You need a TradingPal account on Premium (the beta plan for API access) and either an agent host or a terminal.

1. Connect your agent

No key needed for an agent host. Paste this into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or any agent that can fetch a URL:

Paste into your agent
Set up TradingPal pattern access for me: fetch https://tradingpal.io/developers/llms.txt and follow it.
Add the MCP server and tell me when I need to sign in; if TRADINGPAL_API_KEY is set, use that instead.
Then tell me what is setting up on my tracked tickers.

The prompt points at a URL instead of carrying the instructions, so it never goes stale, and it ends with a first task so the agent proves the connection in the same turn. To set it up yourself instead, install the plugin or add the server; every host talks to the same server:

claude plugin marketplace add rendude/tradingpal-plugins
claude plugin install tradingpal@tradingpal
# or the server alone:
claude mcp add --transport http tradingpal {MCP_URL}

Then sign in when the host asks: Claude Code under /mcp, Codex on codex mcp login or on the plugin install, Cursor with the Needs login button next to the server. The browser opens on TradingPal, you approve, and the host keeps a token. The approval appears on Keys as a key named after the host.

2. Or create a key, for scripts

Anything that cannot open a browser (a script, a server-side agent, curl) uses a key. Go to Keys, name the key after the thing that will use it (morning script) and create it. The key is shown once. Put it where your code reads it:

Shell
export TRADINGPAL_API_KEY=tp_live_…

Keep it out of chat transcripts and repositories; a key can be revoked and replaced from the same page in seconds. The MCP hosts above take a key too, for a machine with no browser: --header "Authorization: Bearer $TRADINGPAL_API_KEY" in Claude Code, bearer_token_env_var = "TRADINGPAL_API_KEY" under [mcp_servers.tradingpal] in Codex's config.toml, a headers block in Cursor.

curl
curl "{API_URL}/me" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRADINGPAL_API_KEY"

The /me call is the handshake: it returns the plan, the limits and how many tickers the key's account tracks. If it answers 401, the header is missing or the key is wrong; 403 means the account is not on a plan with API access.

3. Track the tickers you care about

Pattern, history and chart calls work only on tracked tickers, and the tracked list is your watchlist on the site. Replace the whole list in one call (it is all-or-nothing, so the list is never half-updated):

curl -X PUT "https://api.tradingpal.io/api/v1/tickers" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRADINGPAL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"symbols": ["NVDA", "AAPL", "MSFT"]}'

Each ticker comes back with covered, true when the nightly build includes it. A ticker that is not covered is tracked but has nothing to show yet.

4. Ask what is setting up

curl "https://api.tradingpal.io/api/v1/tickers/NVDA/patterns" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRADINGPAL_API_KEY"

A setup answer looks like this, trimmed:

Response
{
  "as_of_session": "2026-09-25",
  "symbol": "NVDA",
  "available": true,
  "setups": [
    {
      "setup_id": "NVDA:D:falling_wedge:1",
      "family_label": "Falling wedge",
      "direction": "bullish",
      "status": "forming",
      "lines": {
        "upper": { "start": { "date": "2026-08-08", "price": 110.0 }, "end": { "date": "2026-09-07", "price": 104.0 } },
        "lower": { "start": { "date": "2026-08-08", "price": 90.0 }, "end": { "date": "2026-09-07", "price": 98.0 } }
      },
      "trigger_rule": "A daily close above the upper line; the trigger price moves with the line.",
      "plans": [{ "direction": "bullish", "trigger_price": 105.25, "stop_price": 96.0, "target_price": 120.0 }],
      "track_record": { "family": { "summary": "Falling wedge: 1,287 resolved trades from 2006-09-25 to 2026-09-25; 54% reached the target, average win +8.1%, average loss -4.2%, median win +6.3%." } }
    }
  ]
}

Reading a setup explains every field. The short version: draw the two lines from their dated endpoints on a log-scale chart, the plan is the trade if the trigger rule fires, and the track record is what happened the last 1,287 times.

5. Present it properly

If the answer goes in front of a person, keep the four rules from For agents: quote the summary sentence whole rather than a bare win rate, say the as_of_session date, draw lines from their endpoints rather than a slope, and repeat the disclaimer. The API is educational chart analysis, not advice.

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