Going live

Your strategy has passed all three stages in guide 2. This guide takes it live, and tells you when to stop it.

1. Aphna Live: the same strategy, sending trades

Aphna Live is the trading version of your strategy. It must match your Aphna Builder strategy exactly.

1. Open the chart your strategy was built on: same symbol, same data provider, same timeframe.
2. Indicators → My scripts → Aphna Live. Tick the disclaimer.
3. Copy every setting from Aphna Builder: every number, every tick box, every session day. Then check them again, one by one.
4. Fill in the trading details:

Which account number?

Setting up involves several account numbers, and they're easy to mix up. Aphna Live wants one of them:

Numbers you'll see but don't enter in Aphna Live: your prop firm account number, your cTrader ID, your Traders Connect details, and your TradingView username.

2. The alert

1. Open Alerts (the alarm-clock icon, right-hand toolbar) → Create alert.
2. Condition: Aphna Live → Any alert() function call.
3. Expiration: open-ended.
4. Notifications → Webhook URL: the address from your Aphna dashboard.
5. Leave the message box as it is. Create.

If you change anything in Aphna Live afterwards, delete the alert and create it again. Otherwise it keeps trading the old settings.

3. Your account

Route A: cTrader, through Aphna Link (recommended)

The Aphna Link steps are added here when Aphna Link opens.

Route B: MetaTrader 4/5, with the Aphna EA

Install the EA (once per MetaTrader):

1. In MetaTrader: File → Open Data Folder → MQL4 → Experts. Copy the Aphna EA file in.
2. Open MetaEditor, open the EA, and press F7. It must say 0 errors.
3. Tools → Options → Expert Advisors: tick Allow WebRequest and add the server address from your Aphna dashboard.
4. Drag the Aphna EA onto one chart. It trades every symbol from there. Enter the settings:

5. Close MetaTrader and reopen it. Then in Market Watch: right-click → Show All.
6. Check: the chart shows Aphna EA with its status panel, and the AutoTrading button is green.

Copying to your prop firm account: Traders Connect is a separate company's product, so follow its own instructions: the help centre at https://help.tradersconnect.com, where each article includes a video tutorial. The two articles you need are Connect Accounts and Create Copier. Your MetaTrader account with the Aphna EA is the master; your prop firm account receives the trades.

MetaTrader must run all day, every day, so it normally runs on a VPS.

4. Check your first trade

When the strategy's first trade fires, check:

• it opened on your account, with its stop and target set;
• on the MetaTrader route, it was copied to your prop firm account;
• it matches the trade Aphna Builder shows on the chart.

If anything doesn't match, stop the strategy, check guide 6: Common problems, and contact support if that doesn't fix it.

5. The kill rule: when to stop a strategy

On the 4th loss in a row, stop the strategy.

1. Turn it off: delete its alert.
2. Open its chart in Aphna Builder and change nothing. The builder now includes those four losses.
3. Look at "max consec losses". It will show 4, and the criteria allow 3. The strategy has failed, so delete it.
4. Build a new one from scratch, through guide 3.

Don't adjust the old settings to make the four losses disappear. That shapes the strategy around its last four trades. It will look good on the chart and it has been tested on nothing new.

This rule will sometimes stop a good strategy, and that's by design. Even a strategy that truly wins 70% of its trades hits four losses in a row by bad luck surprisingly often:

The rule protects your account first. A stopped strategy isn't proof the tool failed; it's the rule doing its job.