Use Alpaca equities and spot crypto

Choose the correct Alpaca route#

AMM exposes Alpaca for equities and Alpaca Crypto for spot crypto. They share Alpaca credentials and account equity, but their market data, quantities, history and order restrictions differ. The venue identifiers are alpaca and alpaca-crypto. Selecting a crypto symbol in an equity configuration does not replace the need to use the crypto route.

Open Data › Brokers & feeds and select Alpaca or Alpaca Crypto. Set Paper/LIVE before entering a credential pair. Credentials are saved on the AMM backend; status returns configured flags and origin/profile information, never the secret. Reveal shows only a currently typed draft. Blank credential fields preserve existing configured values; removal is explicit. Optional local caching is separate and off by default.

Use Test credentials to perform the read-only account check, then inspect the environment, trading endpoint and returned account. A successful credential check does not prove a SIP market-data subscription. The crypto drawer shares the credential settings while hiding equity-only SIP/feed options.

Equities: configure feed and research history#

For equities, choose the actual market-data feed available to your account. The authenticated official WebSocket supplies live quotes and completed minute bars; AMM does not silently replace a failed stream with latest-quote REST polling. A WebSocket URL naming another feed is flagged in the drawer so you can correct it deliberately.

Use Data Download for daily bars, minute bars, trade ticks or separate historical quote ticks. Tick means trade prints. QuoteTick means historical SIP NBBO bid/ask observations and needs explicit SIP entitlement confirmation. Choosing a paid feed or possessing a trading key does not automatically satisfy that confirmation.

For API requests, the quote entitlement override is nullable: omitted/null inherits server configuration, true confirms entitlement, false explicitly denies it. The application refuses a historical SIP quote request before acquisition when entitlement is not confirmed. Inspect the final job's per-symbol result: background feed failures can occur after initial job acceptance.

Stored equity history belongs to the Alpaca source. Exact historical symbol mode can disable present-day ticker mapping for dated constituent research. Choose that deliberately when studying renamed/delisted securities, and keep the selected adjustment basis with results.

Crypto: pairs, orders and precision#

Alpaca Crypto supports live L1 quotes, L2 order books and trade prints. History supports daily/minute bars, trade ticks and quote ticks under the separate crypto provider identity. Crypto quote history does not require the equity SIP gate. Public symbols preserve the pair, such as BTC/USD; ETH/BTC and ETH/USD must remain distinct in history and templates.

Live execution currently accepts USD pairs only. Other available pairs retain market-data, history and backtest use; they do not gain execution support. Crypto is cash-only and long-only, without margin or short selling. Supported entry shapes are market, limit and stop-limit with GTC/IOC rules. Atomic brackets, OTO/OCO and position SL/TP are unavailable. Do not transfer an equity bracket template into a crypto session and expect it to protect the holding.

Quantities are fractional base-asset units with exact exchange minimum and step rules. Use AMM's quantity controls and order estimate. A rounded display is not permission to submit a quantity off the contract grid.

Understand ownership and account numbers#

Alpaca's broker account is netted. AMM maintains a virtual allocation per session so independent strategies can trade the same symbol. Session P&L is calculated from that session's own executions; account equity also includes external positions and other activity. Netted-session realized P&L currently excludes normalized commission and fees. Regulatory activities and crypto fees need their own inspection.

Crypto fees may be charged in the received asset and posted later. Use Posted fees to inspect provider activities instead of assuming every trade immediately has a zero or USD-converted commission. A received-asset fee can reduce the holding without being a cash fee in the quote currency.

Account Today/Week/Month change uses available equity history and supported deposits/withdrawals. Those figures are account metrics, not the profit of the currently selected strategy. Keep the distinction when reconciling an export.

A controlled Paper workflow#

1. Configure and test Paper credentials.
2. Select Alpaca equities or Alpaca Crypto explicitly and choose an account-supported instrument.
3. Review live and history roles and download the required warmup.
4. Check the exact quantity grid and supported order type.
5. Start the chart/session, wait for Running and a current quote, then inspect the estimate.
6. After an action, read broker orders/fills and the session allocation; confirm protection only where supported.

For equities, broker-native protection has shape-change restrictions: clear existing protection before submitting a new shape when required. For a broker-sync drift warning, inspect the complete cohort and external baseline before requesting reconcile-and-repair. A manual external close can change the available allocation, and repair is a deliberate account operation.

Troubleshoot by cause#

Use login errors for credentials/environment, feed errors for WebSocket/feed selection, SIP denials for quote entitlement, and symbol errors for the exact account's security master. If startup lacks history, inspect download coverage and provider identity. Avoid switching Paper/LIVE profiles while retaining stale drafts or assuming a timeout means an order was never accepted. See Historical data and Market depth data for the separate acquisition and stream contracts.