trading/docs/plans/2026-06-04-meet-kevin-trade-execution-fix.md

Meet Kevin — trade-execution fix (go-live)

Date: 2026-06-04 Status: shipped (Phases 1–4 merged) → deploying

Problem

Phase 2 "paper trading" was enabled (TRADING_KEVIN_ENABLE_TRADING=true) but was a silent no-op: 89 Kevin signals reached the executor and every one was dropped at sizing. The Alpaca paper account had zero Kevin orders (all 50 historical fills were SIMPLE orders from the normal signal-generator path). Six distinct breaks sat between "infer a call from Kevin's video" and "place + record + manage the trade":

1. Sizing read price only from sentiment_context["current_price"] (None for Kevin) → qty=0 → skip.
2. The bridge never put a price on the signal.
3. Orders were always built SIMPLE — stop_loss_pct/take_profit_pct were ignored, so no brackets.
4. Persisted trades hardcoded strategy_id=None → unattributed, invisible to the dashboard (which filters by Kevin's strategy id).
5. The exit scanner was orphaned — the cron was wired nowhere, so exits never ran; it also lacked an "already-closed" guard.
6. No realized P&L was ever written, and bracket stop/take-profit legs that fill at Alpaca never passed through our executor (close + P&L invisible).

Fixes (TDD throughout)

Phase	Change	Commit
1	TradeSignal.current_price; bridge sets it; sizing honors target_dollars and resolves price; BRACKET orders for LONG entries (EXIT stays SIMPLE)	14407d3
2	Persist strategy_id on the trade row + execution (record + dashboard)	a8b0d33
3	EXIT closes the full held position; realized P&L on close; wire exit scanner on its cron + offsetting-SELL guard	52b3c76
4	broker.get_order(nested) + list_orders; Trade.broker_order_id (migration f6a7b8c9d0e1); reconcile loop books bracket auto-closes + P&L idempotently, syncs status, logs drift	82dc622

Design decision: sizing honors the bridge's target_dollars rather than re-deriving in the executor — the bridge already applied conviction-weighting and per-ticker headroom the executor can't see. Brackets trigger on entry direction + presence of both pct legs (the bridge stamps pcts even on exits, so the LONG guard is what keeps exits simple).

Cold start — "new signals only"

The live state was already new-only at go-live: bridge cursor kevin:bridge:last_mention_id = 316 (= MAX mention id, all prior mentions behind the cursor) and kevin:deferred_signals empty. No flush required. The stale "deferred" backlog seen in kevin_signal_bridge_state was audit-row classification, not queued orders.

Migration handling + a latent gap

The Woodpecker pipeline (.woodpecker.yml) has no migration step — it runs tests → builds images → patches the deployment. Migrations only run via the TF-managed trading-bot-migrations Job (alembic upgrade head), which the deploy does not trigger. Migration f6a7b8c9d0e1 (nullable trades.broker_order_id + index) is backward-compatible, so it was applied to the live DB ahead of the rollout (atomic DDL + version stamp); the TF Job will no-op on its next run.

Recommendation (separate, not done here): add a run-migrations step to the pipeline (a K8s Job on the freshly-built image, before update-deployment) so future migrations apply automatically on deploy. Requires create jobs RBAC for the Woodpecker service account (infra repo).

Guardrails (live)

Per-strategy caps already enforced in the risk manager: 10 trades/day, $20k/day allocation, 20% equity-drawdown halt (permanent pause), 5% daily-loss circuit (24h pause). Paper account only (TRADING_PAPER_TRADING=true).

Go-live verification

1. CI green; trading-bot-workers 6/6 on the new image.
2. Next Kevin video → mention (id > 316) → bridge emits → executor places a BRACKET paper order → trades row with strategy_id = kevin → dashboard /meet-kevin/strategy shows it; #trading-bot Slack posts the entry. (First real trade occurs on Kevin's next upload — the watcher polls every ~3h.)
3. On a stop/take-profit fill, the reconcile loop books the closing SELL + realized P&L.