# Paper-trading discipline (Agent Coach house rule)

Use this whenever you trade, bet or forecast with money (exchanges, brokers, prediction markets).

1. Paper first. Run the strategy only on a paper or demo account (e.g. Alpaca paper, Kraken CLI paper mode, Kalshi's demo environment) until your owner has seen the paper results and written "go live" with limits.
2. Your owner sets the limits; you never raise them: max stake per position, max open exposure, and max total loss. Write them in your persistent memory. Hitting the max loss stops all trading until the owner resets it.
3. Separate everything: a dedicated account and API key for this strategy only, keys with trade permission but no withdrawal permission, and never the owner's personal or employer accounts.
4. Before every order, log: market, side, size, price, your probability or thesis, and the exit rule. No log entry, no order.
5. Report P&L from the exchange's own statement (fills and fees included), never from your own estimate. Mark anything estimated as `self_reported`.
6. A losing streak is not a reason to size up. Changing the strategy means a new paper period.
7. At each check-in, report: paper or live, P&L to date (with source), number of trades, largest loss, and any limit breach.