Forge a Trading Legend

Author a new trading legend/persona from a famous trader's name or a plain-English strategy description, then lint and live-audition it before it joins your roster. E.g. "make a trader who buys liquidity sweeps" or "add an ICT legend".

Forge a new legend from $ARGUMENTS and admit it to the user's roster. Works on a named figure or a plain-English strategy (e.g. "make a trader who buys liquidity sweeps"). Infer-first: draft everything you can, ask only for true gaps.

0. Bootstrap (every run — cheap and idempotent)

Run scripts/setup.sh (in this skill's own directory) and capture its stdout as TLC_HOME (it clones/updates github.com/FXDavid-OffbeatForex/TLC under ~/.tlc/ and installs requirements.txt into an isolated venv at $TLC_HOME/.venv). cd "$TLC_HOME" and add the venv to PATH before every command below: export PATH="$TLC_HOME/.venv/bin:$TLC_HOME/.venv/Scripts:$PATH" (POSIX venvs use bin, Windows-native venvs use Scripts — only one will exist, so prepending both is safe everywhere). This makes plain python3 (or python on Windows, which usually has no python3 shim) resolve to the venv with deps installed — not to any other Python that happens to be on PATH (e.g. the harness's own bundled interpreter), which would silently run against the wrong environment and fail with confusing import errors. If the script fails, report the exact error — do not fall back to a half-installed run.

Do all of this skill's work in the terminal tool, inside $TLC_HOME — never execute_code or any other code-sandbox tool for tlc.* commands. Those sandboxes are a separate, isolated Python environment without this project's venv, MetaTrader5, or MBT's core module, so a tlc.* call there fails with a misleading ModuleNotFoundError/NotImplementedError. Three rules follow:

• An import/ModuleNotFoundError is almost never a real data outage. It means the wrong tool ran the command, or the venv/cwd from §0 didn't carry into this call. Re-assert cd "$TLC_HOME" + the PATH export in terminal and retry there. Never let such an error override data you already fetched successfully earlier in the same conversation — reuse that data, don't discard it.
• Read and write this skill's files in terminal too — the draft spec at my_legends/<id>.md, temp ballot.json, config.yaml/.env. Every path here is relative to $TLC_HOME; if you use any other tool for a file, give it the absolute path under $TLC_HOME, or the next terminal command won't find it.
• The fetched OHLCV packet is your only market-data source. Never substitute a price or quote from web search, a browser, or any other tool — that is a subtler form of fabricating data.

0b. First-run setup (auto-configure — runs ONLY when config is missing)

Still inside $TLC_HOME, check for config: ls .env config.yaml 2>/dev/null.

• Both present → already configured. Continue, and do NOT re-prompt for anything (including a TV key): if TradingView is enabled but .env has no TVR_API_KEY, say so once, only the first time you audition on a TV symbol — never nag it on every run.

• Missing → this is first-run setup. Auto-configure. Do NOT run a question wizard, and never ask about "engine" or "alerts" (Hermes runs the model and handles scheduling/delivery — those TLC settings don't apply here). Do this:

  Setup gate — finish steps 2 and 3 before anything else. After writing config, do NOT start the audition, fetch data, or answer the request until setup is complete. Until then the only things you may emit are the MT5-terminal choice (step 2, when more than one terminal is running) or the TradingView-key prompt (step 3).

  1. Write config.yaml from config.example.yaml: enabled_platforms: [mt5, tradingview], default_platform: mt5, no bridge_url (Docker/ remote only). Write a blank .env scaffold.
  2. MT5 — the zero-config, no-key default. MBT lives at $TLC_HOME/MBT (clone github.com/FXDavid-OffbeatForex/MBT there + pip install -r MBT/requirements.txt if absent); tlc.providers.mt5 puts it on sys.path, so no bridge is needed. Before any fetch, count the running MT5 terminals (Get-Process terminal64 on Windows / pgrep -f terminal64 under Wine):
     • exactly one → mt5.initialize() auto-attaches; leave mt5_path blank.
     • more than one → you MUST list them and ask the user which one, then set mt5_path in MBT/config.yaml to their choice. Never silently pick.
     • none running → search C:\Program Files\**\terminal64.exe and confirm.
  3. TradingView key — ask once here (first-run only, never again). Tell the user TV is optional and needs a free key from tvremix.xyz (account → API keys), then let them add it now or skip:
     • Desktop/local: open $TLC_HOME/.env (code .env / reveal it) and have them paste it in a real editor and save — key stays in the file, not chat.
     • Telegram/remote: they send it; save to $TLC_HOME/.env immediately (and delete their message if the channel supports it). Or "skip" — MT5 works with no key. If skipped, leave TVR_API_KEY blank; TradingView stays unavailable until someone adds it to $TLC_HOME/.env (it's one shared file — set once, works from every interface). Do not re-ask on later runs.

  Never invent or hardcode a key; never put a real secret in config.yaml.

1. Classify the input

• A named figure (e.g. "ICT", "Al Brooks", "Minervini") → use the documented public methodology. Frame it as a strategy profile, not an impersonation of a person.
• A strategy description (including the user's own) → encode exactly what they wrote.

2. Draft the spec (format = tlc/legends/<id>.md)

Pick a lowercase id (letters/digits/underscore; don't collide with a core legend unless the user wants to override one). Write frontmatter (id, display_name, tf_scope, default_anchor, regime_strengths) + sections: Identity, Method, Timeframe rules, Vote rules, Output (copy the shape of tlc/legends/wyckoff.md). The Vote rules MUST state LONG/SHORT/FLAT conditions, an invalidation rule (what proves it wrong — this becomes the stop), and the conviction drivers. Output section points at tlc/legends/_single_legend_flow.md.

3. Fill only the gaps

Ask the user only for fields you genuinely cannot infer — most often the invalidation rule. Keep it to one or two short questions; infer the rest.

4. Lint (hard gate)

Write the draft to my_legends/<id>.md, then: python3 -m tlc.spec_lint my_legends/<id>.md If it reports errors, fix them and re-lint until clean. A spec with no invalidation rule cannot pass — that's intentional (it must be scoreable).

5. Audition (live smoke-test)

Run the legend once via tlc/legends/_single_legend_flow.md on a sensible symbol/timeframe for its method (resolve the platform the same way convene and ask-a-legend do — explicit token, else asset-class auto-route, else the config.yaml default).

Never fabricate market data. If every fetch path fails (no MCP registered, no API key, network error, timeout), stop and report the failure plainly rather than inventing bars/prices to complete the audition — a fabricated smoke-test proves nothing.

Validate the resulting ballot: python3 -c "from tlc.ballot import validate_ballot; import json,sys; print(validate_ballot(json.load(sys.stdin)) or 'OK')" < ballot.json It must return OK (a schema-valid LONG/SHORT/FLAT ballot). If invalid, adjust the spec and repeat. Optionally show a quick read of how it voted.

6. Save + offer to group (mandatory — this is your final output)

Do not stop after linting or auditioning without telling the user the outcome. Your final message MUST confirm whether the legend was admitted (or why it wasn't) and offer the council step below — if you've done the work but haven't reported it, you are not done.

The spec is already at my_legends/<id>.md (gitignored — the user's edge stays theirs). Confirm it's admitted, then offer to add it to a council: "Add <id> to a council? (new one, or an existing roster)". Create/append rosters with python3 -m tlc.council new <name> <id…>.