How copy-trading execution works

What copy-trading means

Copy-trading means that when a strategy you follow says 'buy EURUSD at 1.0850 with a 1% stop', PIPFORGE opens that same position in your broker account. The copy matches the direction, entry, stop loss, take profit and a position size that fits your risk settings.

Step-by-step use case

• You upgrade to a Trader or Pro plan.
• You visit /copy-trading, enable copy-trading and set guardrails (max risk per trade, daily loss limit, max drawdown, max open positions).
• You visit /brokers and choose your broker type: MT5, Binance, Bitget or TradingView webhook.
• For MT5/Binance/Bitget you give the connection a friendly label and a reference name (not the password or API secret). The real credential stays in your broker account or a supported secrets manager.
• You subscribe to a system strategy in /marketplace, or connect a TradingView alert to your webhook URL.
• When the strategy emits a signal, PIPFORGE reads the symbol, direction, entry, stop loss, take profit and risk amount.
• PIPFORGE runs the signal through your guardrails and the global kill-switch. If a rule is breached, the trade is rejected.
• If all checks pass, PIPFORGE computes position size and, when live execution is enabled, calls your broker's API with the real credentials to open the position. It stores the broker's order ID in PIPFORGE.
• If you do not have a broker connected yet, the trade is stored as no_broker so you can see exactly what would have been traded.

What is live today

Right now PIPFORGE creates the copy-trade record, runs the guardrails and marks the trade executed when a broker connection exists. The broker API call that actually opens the position is the next layer we are wiring. No real money is placed until that layer is enabled.

How the credentials reference works

• PIPFORGE never stores your MT5 password or API secret in the application database.
• Instead, the broker form stores a reference name such as 'mt5-main' or 'binance-spot-sam'.
• The real value is kept in a secrets store that only your PIPFORGE Worker can read, for example Cloudflare Secrets Store or a private vault.
• At execution time, PIPFORGE passes the reference to the secrets store and receives the credential only in memory for that single request.
• Until that secrets-store adapter is configured, the reference is recorded but cannot yet be resolved, so real orders are not sent.

When money will really be placed

Money is placed once the broker adapter is implemented and the secrets store can resolve your reference. At that point an executed copy-trade will mean a real order was sent to Binance, Bitget or your MT5 bridge, and PIPFORGE will record the broker order ID it gets back.