piker

trading gear for hackers

piker is a broker agnostic, next-gen FOSS toolset and runtime for real-time computational trading targeted at hardcore Linux users .

we use much bleeding edge tech including (but not limited to):

• latest python for glue
• uv for packaging and distribution
• trio & tractor for our distributed structured concurrency runtime
• Qt for pristine low latency UIs
• pyqtgraph (which we've extended) for real-time charting and graphics
• polars numpy and numba for redic fast numerics
• apache arrow and parquet for time-series storage

potential projects we might integrate with soon,

• (already prototyped in ) techtonicdb for L2 book storage

focus and feats:

fitting with these tenets, we're always open to new framework/lib/service interop suggestions and ideas!

• 100% federated: your code, your hardware, your data feeds, your broker fills.
• zero web: low latency as a prime objective, native UIs and modern IPC protocols without trying to re-invent the "OS-as-an-app"..
• maximal privacy: prevent brokers and mms from knowing your planz; smack their spreads with dark volume from a VPN tunnel.
• zero clutter: modal, context oriented UIs that echew minimalism, reduce thought noise and encourage un-emotion.
• first class parallelism: built from the ground up on a next-gen structured concurrency supervision sys.
• traders first: broker/exchange/venue/asset-class/money-sys agnostic
• systems grounded: real-time financial signal processing (fsp) that will make any queuing or DSP eng juice their shorts.
• non-tina UX: sleek, powerful keyboard driven interaction with expected use in tiling wms (or maybe even a DDE).
• data collab at scale: every actor-process and protocol is multi-host aware.
• fight club ready: zero interest in adoption by suits; no corporate friendly license, ever.

building the hottest looking, fastest, most reliable, keyboard friendly FOSS trading platform is the dream; join the cause.

a sane install with uv

bc why install with python when you can faster with rust :

uv sync

# ^ astral's docs,
# https://docs.astral.sh/uv/concepts/projects/sync/

include all GUIs (ex. for charting):

uv sync --extra uis

AND with all our hacking tools and WIP integrations:

uv sync --dev --all-extras 

Ensure you can run the root-daemon:

uv run pikerd [-l info --pdb]

install on nix(os)

NixOS is our core devs' distro of choice for which we offer a stringently defined development shell envoirment that can currently be applied in one of 2 ways:

# ONLY if running on X11
nix-shell default.nix

Or if you prefer flakes style and a modern DE:

# ONLY if also running on Wayland
nix develop  # for default bash
nix develop -c uv run xonsh  # for @goodboy's preferred sh B)

start a chart

run a realtime OHLCV chart stand-alone:

[uv run] piker -l info chart btcusdt.spot.binance xmrusdt.spot.kraken

# ^^^ iff you haven't activated the py-env,
# - https://docs.astral.sh/uv/concepts/projects/run/
#
# in order to create an explicit virt-env see,
# - https://docs.astral.sh/uv/concepts/projects/layout/#the-project-environment
# - https://docs.astral.sh/uv/pip/environments/
#
# use $UV_PROJECT_ENVIRONMENT to select any non-`.venv/`
# as the venv sudir in the repo's root.
# - https://docs.astral.sh/uv/reference/environment/#uv_project_environment

this runs a chart UI (with 1m sampled OHLCV) and shows 2 spot markets from 2 diff cexes overlayed on the same graph. Use of piker without first starting a daemon (pikerd - see below) means there is an implicit spawning of the multi-actor-runtime (implemented as a tractor app).

For additional subsystem feats available through our chart UI see the various sub-readmes:

• order control using a mouse-n-keyboard UX B)
• cross venue market-pair (what most call "symbol") search, select, overlay Bo
• financial-signal-processing (piker.fsp) write-n-reload to sub-chart BO
• src-asset derivatives scan for anal, like the infamous "max pain" XO

spawn a daemon standalone

we call the root actor-process the pikerd. it can be (and is recommended normally to be) started separately from the piker chart program:

pikerd -l info --pdb

the daemon does nothing until a piker-client (like piker chart) connects and requests some particular sub-system. for a connecting chart pikerd will spawn and manage at least,

• a data-feed daemon: datad which does all the work of comms with the backend provider (in this case the binance cex).
• a paper-trading engine instance, paperboi.binance, (if no live account has been configured) which allows for auto/manual order control against the live quote stream.

using an actor-service (aka micro-daemon) manager which dynamically supervises various sub-subsystems-as-services throughout the piker runtime-stack.

now you can (implicitly) connect your chart:

piker chart btcusdt.spot.binance

since pikerd was started separately you can now enjoy a persistent real-time data stream tied to the daemon-tree's lifetime. i.e. the next time you spawn a chart it will obviously not only load much faster (since the underlying datad.binance is left running with its in-memory IPC data structures) but also the data-feed and any order mgmt states should be persistent until you finally cancel pikerd.

if anyone asks you what this project is about

you don't talk about it; just use it.

how do i get involved?

enter the matrix.

how come there ain't that many docs

i mean we want/need them but building the core right has been higher prio then marketting (and likely will stay that way Bp).

soo, suck it up bc,

• no one is trying to sell you on anything
• learning the code base is prolly way more valuable
• the UI/UXs are intended to be "intuitive" for any hacker..

we obviously need tonz help so if you want to start somewhere and can't necessarily write "advanced" concurrent python/rust code, this helping document literally anything might be the place for you!