Strategies and automation for prop firm traders
Backtest a futures strategy against your prop firm’s rules
Build a futures strategy, backtest it on your own broker's history and walk its trades through a prop firm's rulebook to see whether it would pass and which rule would end it. Then run it as signals, as orders staged for your two clicks, or on a sim account. Automation never sends an order to a live account.
Strategies & Prop Eval Lab: Pro and upAutomation Center: Pro and upCode editor (preview): Quant
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Prop Eval Lab · Pro and up
Would your strategy pass a prop firm evaluation?
Your backtest’s trades, walked through a firm’s rulebook day by day: a verdict, the rule that would end it, and pass odds with the sample beside them.
Opening-range long · ES · 1 contract · Oct 5 → Oct 16 · Apex Trader Funding · $50,000
Would fail Intraday Trailing
- Failed on trading day 6 (2026-10-12): the drawdown floor crossed by $35.
- Closest to the floor: $35 through it.
- Intraday trailing also counts open profit and loss inside each trade; these are closed trades only, so the real floor sits closer.
33 trades over 10 trading days. Enough to sketch the behaviour; still one stretch of one market.
Pass odds Resampled from 33 trades over 10 trading days. One stretch of one market — a sketch, not a forecast.
- Pass
- 66.3%
- Fail
- 32.6%
- Still open after 20
- 1.1%
- Median sessions to pass
- 7
Fails on the drawdown 32.6% · 1,000 simulated evaluations, seed 424242: the same run gives the same odds.
Same 33 trades, two verdicts: Intraday Trailing lifts the floor with every new high, so the giveback ends it on day 6; End-of-Day Trailing lifts it only at the close, and the run reaches the target on day 10.
The prop firm strategy tester
How the Prop Eval Lab judges a strategy
Two numbers, kept apart: the walk is what the firm’s rules do to your backtest; the odds reshuffle the same trades to show how fragile that is.
- Choose the run. A strategy, up to 30 days of your own history, a size, and up to three firms side by side.
- The walk. Each trade moves the balance on the firm’s trading day, and the floor moves as that firm’s drawdown does; with your feed’s bars, open minutes count too. The first line crossed ends it: the floor, the daily loss limit or the time limit.
- The odds. 1,000 simulated evaluations of 20 sessions, drawn from your own trades and judged by the same walk, plus the odds at each contract count.
- The sample. Under 30 trades the verdict reads “Unknown — too few trades”; under 10, the odds are withheld.
No strategy yet? Eval Autopsy replays a broker export through every firm’s rules, free. Each firm’s rulebook: prop firm rules.
Strategy Studio · Pro and up
A futures strategy builder that tests what it built
A rule strategy is entry rules, exit rules, a stop, a target and a schedule. The Strategy Studio takes it from your words to a saved version; nothing it saves runs until you approve it.
- Your words
- Spec
- Rules
- Tests
- Backtest
- Saved disarmed
Rules you can read
Each rule compares a value with a number or another value: price and bar values, SMA, EMA, RSI, Bollinger Bands, MACD, ATR, VWAP, stochastic, CCI, the New York session’s volume profile and the time of day. Add a stop and a target in ticks, a trade cap, a daily loss stop, a trading window and a flatten time.
A spec, tests and versions
Your spec (side, entry window, trades a day, stop, target, size) is checked against the rules field by field, and tests written from it run on the backtest's trades; a failing test blocks a deployment request. Every change is a version you can compare line by line.
Your own Claude · Pro and up
Connected without an API key, your Claude writes the spec and the rules and can ask for a deployment: 12 tools, everything saved switched off. PassTraq runs no AI model of its own. See the AI trading assistant.
Code editor (early preview) · Quant. One TypeScript or JavaScript file, compiled in a sandbox. Code strategies cannot be deployed yet.
Backtesting
Backtest a futures strategy on your own broker’s history
The Studio and the Prop Eval Lab backtest on 1-minute bars from your own broker’s history, through your connected account, up to 30 days a run. PassTraq sells no market data, and a backtest never touches an account.
- Every result prints how the engine fills: market entries at the next bar's open · stop before target inside a bar · exit rules at the bar's close · $2.50 a side · daily caps reset at 17:00 Chicago (the CME trading day)
- Every result states its sample. Under 30 trades it shows the rules behave as written, not that the strategy has an edge.
- Each trade shows why it entered: every entry rule, with the value it read at the signal bar.
- Rules on the order book can't be backtested: your feed replays bars, not depth history.
Automation Center · Pro and up
Automated trading signals for prop firms: signal, stage or sim
The Automation Center puts one rule strategy to work on one account and one instrument, on closed 1-minute bars while PassTraq is open. None of its three modes sends an order to a live account.
- Signal
- Tells you each entry and exit and sends nothing.
- Stage
- Prepares each order on your trading screen for your two clicks: Review, then Send.
- Sim
- Sends each order on a sim account by itself. Sim mode refuses any other account.
- Signal50K evaluationRunning3 signals · no orders
- Stage50K evaluationRunning2 orders staged for you · 2 signalsBudget: 1 contract max · $400 loss a day · 3 trades a day
- SimSim accountDone for the day · 2 losses6 sim orders · 3 trades · −$310.00Budget: 2 contracts max · $300 loss a day · 6 orders a minute
Approved, then pinned
Approve & start takes two clicks: a deployment runs only the exact version you approved (its hash). An edit changes nothing until you approve again.
A budget each
Cap its contracts, loss a day, trades a day and orders a minute. Over budget, it halts.
It says why it stopped
Paused by youPaused by the kill switchHalted — over its budgetHalted — three refusals in a minuteNeeds your approvalHalted — uses what a deployment cannot read yetHalted — an errorStopped itself · silent
Limits
One kill switch, and no live automation
Automation runs as signals, as staged orders you send yourself, or on sim. A kill switch flattens only what automation opened.
Stop all automation
Two clicks stop every deployment and trigger, cancel automation's orders, dismiss its staged orders and close only what it opened. Your own trades stay open. Resume all takes two clicks too.
Flatten everything
Closes every position on every account, yours too, and stops automation, from the trading screen.
Live is not a mode, on any plan: deployments run Signal, Stage or Sim; the gateway has no live path for them. Live order routing on Quant is for your own clicks, on the futures trading platform, with your firm's limits on the rules tracker.
Which prop firms allow automated trading?
| Firm | Evaluation | Funded |
|---|---|---|
| Apex Trader Fundingsource | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Topstepsource | Allowed | Allowed |
| MyFundedFuturessource | Allowed | Allowed |
| Tradeifysource | Allowed | Allowed |
| Take Profit Tradersource | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Lucid Tradingsource | Allowed | Allowed |
| The Trading Pitsource | Allowed | Allowed |
| DayTraders.comsource | Allowed | Allowed |
| Elite Trader Fundingsource | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| FTMO Futuressource | Allowed | Allowed |
Checked Oct 21, 2026. 13 other firms have no written rule on record: PassTraq reads them as “not confirmed”. Check your firm's current rules before you automate.
Pricing
Plans for strategies and automation
Strategies, backtests, the Prop Eval Lab and the Automation Center start on Pro ($49 a month). The code editor preview and live order routing are on Quant.
| Feature | Plan |
|---|---|
| Eval Autopsy (free tool) | Free, no account |
| Strategy builder + backtesting | Pro and up |
| Prop Eval Lab | Pro and up |
| Automation Center | Pro and up |
| Your own Claude writing strategies | Pro and up |
| Code editor (early preview) | Quant |
| Live order routing | Quant |
Starter is free forever, with the trading journal. Paid plans start only at Stripe checkout.
Questions
Strategies and automation: questions traders ask
Can I backtest a futures strategy on my own data?
Yes, on Pro and up: on 1-minute bars from your own broker's history, up to 30 days a run. Every result states its fill model and its sample.
Would my strategy pass a prop firm evaluation?
The Prop Eval Lab walks your backtest through the firm's rulebook and names the rule that would end it, with pass odds resampled from the same trades. Under 30 trades the verdict is "Unknown — too few trades"; under 10 the odds are withheld. A sketch, not a forecast.
Does PassTraq automation trade my prop firm account?
Never live. A deployment sends signals, stages orders for your two clicks, or trades a sim account: deployments run Signal, Stage or Sim; the gateway has no live path for them.
Does automation run when PassTraq is closed?
No. Deployments run on closed 1-minute bars while PassTraq is open, and show "waiting" when it is not.
What does the kill switch stop?
Every deployment and trigger, with their working orders. It closes only what automation opened; your own trades stay open. Flatten everything closes every position, yours too.
Can my own AI write a strategy for me?
On Pro and up, your own Claude can write the spec and the rules, saved switched off, and ask for a deployment you approve. No API key, and PassTraq runs no AI model of its own. More on the AI trading assistant.
Which prop firms allow automated trading?
Of the 23 firms PassTraq models, 10 have a written rule on record. Topstep, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify, Lucid Trading, The Trading Pit, DayTraders.com and FTMO Futures allow it in evaluations; Apex Trader Funding, Take Profit Trader and Elite Trader Funding do not.
Start with the free plan
Starter is free forever: no card, no trial. Paid plans start only when you choose one, and you can cancel any time and keep your data on Starter.