Monko Onboarding: The Complete Omni Bucko + TradersPost Setup Guide

If you just upgraded to Omni Bucko and you're staring at the Monko panel wondering what's next, this is the document. End-to-end. Every step. Every setting. With my actual config as a known-good reference.

I'll cover what changes when you upgrade, the optional Tradovate hookup, picking a broker, the full TradersPost setup with my exact strategy config, then every preset on the Bucko side — what to change, what it affects, what I default to, and where to be careful.

TL;DR — the architecture

Monko is the brain. TradersPost is the bridge. Your broker is the executor.

You ── upgrade to Omni Bucko ── unlocks ──> Monko + Station Agents

Bucko Indicator → Monko (decision engine) ──webhook──> TradersPost ──> Your broker
                       │
                       └── reads your Tradovate (optional, for agent intelligence)

Monko evaluates every signal, applies your gates and guardrails, and POSTs order intent to TradersPost. TradersPost places the order on your broker. You wire one URL and you're done.

Prerequisites

• ▸An active Omni Bucko subscription
• ▸A broker account that's compatible with TradersPost (live or eval)
• ▸A TradersPost account (free tier works for most users)
• ▸~15 minutes for first-time setup

Step 1 — Upgrade to Omni Bucko

Omni Bucko is the all-asset tier. Upgrading unlocks:

• ▸Monko — the autonomous futures decision engine (this guide)
• ▸Station agents — Scout (signals), Warden (risk), Coach (discipline), Seer / Oracle (research)
• ▸Hirable agents — like Chronicler, the 90-day pattern historian
• ▸Bucko Indicator for TradingView (full feature set)
• ▸Bucko Buddy — the voice companion

Upgrade at /pricing. After Stripe confirms, head to /dashboard/station and you'll see the Monko panel.

Step 2 — (Optional) Connect Tradovate

This is the part that confuses people most. Be very clear on this:

Monko does NOT need Tradovate connected to trade. TradersPost handles execution on whatever broker you have. Connecting Tradovate to Bucko is for the AI agents — it gives them read-access to your account state.

What connecting Tradovate to Bucko unlocks:

• ▸Warden sees live fills + drawdown and warns you before you violate prop-firm rules
• ▸Coach reads your trade history and flags revenge-trading, hour-of-day tilt, and discipline drift
• ▸Chronicler (if hired) builds win-rate pattern tables across your last 90 days

If you skip this step, Monko still trades fine. The agents just give thinner advice.

To connect: top-left of /dashboard/station → click the Tradovate badge → authorize. You'll see a green "Tradovate ✓ X connected" pill when it's done.

Step 3 — Pick your broker

Monko routes through TradersPost, so any TradersPost-supported broker works. You don't have to use Tradovate.

If you trade prop-firm futures, Tradovate is the standard — Lucid, Apex, Topstep, MFFU, and Tradeify all issue Tradovate sub-accounts.

Step 4 — Sign up for TradersPost

Open traderspost.io in a new tab.

🎟 Use code BUCKO at checkout for 20% off any paid plan.

The free tier covers single-account webhook routing, which is enough for most setups. Paid plans add multi-account copying and a few advanced features.

After signup:

1. ▸Click Brokers in the left nav
2. ▸Click + Add Broker
3. ▸Pick your broker, sign in with your broker credentials
4. ▸Authorize TradersPost when prompted
5. ▸Confirm a green "Connected" status next to your account

If you have multiple sub-accounts (e.g., several Lucid evals), they all show up here. Disable any account you don't want auto-traded at the broker level — TradersPost only fires on accounts toggled "Enabled" on its side.

Step 5 — Create your TradersPost strategy

A "strategy" in TradersPost is a routing channel. It has:

• ▸A name (label)
• ▸A connected broker
• ▸A webhook URL that Bucko POSTs to
• ▸A pile of execution settings

Create one:

1. ▸Strategies in the left nav → + New Strategy
2. ▸Name it something obvious like "Bucko Monko" or "Lucid Trading Bucko"
3. ▸Pick your Connected broker
4. ▸Save

The strategy edit page now shows a Webhook URL at the top:

https://webhooks.traderspost.io/trading/webhook/abc123-.../...

Copy it. You'll paste it into Bucko in Step 7.

🔒 Treat that URL like a password. Anyone with it can fire orders on your account.

Step 6 — Configure the TradersPost strategy settings

This is where most people break things. There are roughly 30 settings on a TradersPost strategy, and a few of them — set wrong — will quietly sabotage Monko's behavior.

Below is my actual config for my Lucid Trading account. Copy it section by section.

Details

Auto Submit fires automatically. Manual Submit forces a click on every order, which defeats the point of autonomous trading.

Notifications

I want every order, every fill, every reject in my inbox. Cheap insurance.

Sides

"Allow side swapping" lets a long signal close an open short and reverse in one webhook. Without it, you'd need two separate signals to flip direction.

Trading window

Leave empty. Monko has its own session controls on the Bucko side and they're more granular.

Position size — the critical one

⚠️ Why None? Monko sends the contract count in every signal. If you set this to Fixed, Risk $, Risk %, or Percent, TradersPost overwrites Monko's quantity with whatever it calculates. Set it to None and TradersPost trusts the signal.

🆕 "Allow add to position" no longer matters. Bucko now blocks same-direction stacking on the same symbol BEFORE the signal reaches TradersPost. If you have a long MNQ position open and another long MNQ signal fires, Bucko refuses to dispatch it (look for [assassin · already_in_position] in The Vines). Set this either way — our layer takes priority. Side-swap (long → short) still works via "Allow side swapping".

Open orders

Before submitting new:

After submitting new:

🛟 The cancel-after-delay settings are why a rejected entry doesn't leave you naked forever. If TradersPost can't fill within 60s, the order auto-cancels. This is the safety net for the 1m timeframe. Don't disable it.

Entry

⚠️ Take profit and Stop loss must be None here, with "Allow signal override" ON. This is THE most important setting. Bucko Assassin Mode sends a trailing_stop at entry (broker walks it with the favorable extreme from t=0) and Pine's structural take-profit as a relative distance from fill. If you set Stop Market 2% or Trailing Stop X% at the strategy level here, TradersPost OVERWRITES Bucko's trail width with whatever you set — and your trail no longer reflects the actual catastrophe distance the engine computed. Always None + override on so Bucko's SL and TP flow through.

📊 What Bucko sends at entry now (Assassin Mode):

• ▸stopLoss: { type: "trailing_stop", trailAmount: <1.5 × ATR points> } — broker trails the high (longs) or low (shorts) from the first tick. Catastrophe-sized so normal noise doesn't chop you out.
• ▸takeProfit: { amount: <Pine's structural TP distance> } — visible on your chart at the structural target, hits cleanly when price reaches it.
• ▸The engine then sends action: exit, orderType: trailing_stop webhook replacements at +1.5R (Phase 3 tighten to 0.75 × ATR) and +2.5R (Phase 4 runner lock to 0.5 × ATR). Phase 2 (+0.7R BE lock) happens silently — the broker's native trail handles it once peak movement equals the initial trail width.

Exit

Retry

Brokers occasionally return transient rejections under load. Retries with exponential backoff catch them without you babysitting.

Save the strategy. The webhook URL doesn't change when you edit settings — you can keep tuning later.

Step 7 — Paste the webhook URL into Bucko

Open /dashboard/station/monko. The Setup Wizard is at the top.

1. ▸Open Step 2 — Connect TradersPost
2. ▸Paste the webhook URL from Step 5
3. ▸Click Save

You should see a green "✓ Connected to TradersPost · Saved" banner. The wizard auto-advances.

Step 8 — Configure Monko

Now the fun part. The wizard walks you through symbols, timeframes, and guardrails, but you'll keep tuning these as you learn what your symbols want.

Symbols (wizard step 3)

Pick which futures Monko is allowed to trade.

• ▸Defaults: MNQ, MES
• ▸Available: MNQ, NQ, MES, ES, MGC, GC, MCL, CL, M2K, RTY, MYM, YM

🐭 Start narrow. Adding too many symbols dilutes signal quality — every passing setup in any allowed symbol fires. Most users do well with 1–3 symbols they actually understand. Trade MNQ until you trust the system, then expand.

Timeframes (wizard step 4)

This is the most consequential setting after symbols. Monko trades on the timeframes you allow.

My rule of thumb

• ▸1m → only if I'm watching. Price moves fast on the 1m. Sometimes TradersPost or your broker rejects an order, and if you're not watching, you can be left in a naked exposed position that blows your account. The cancel-after-60s setting in TradersPost helps but isn't a substitute for eyeballs.
• ▸5m or 15m → if I'm not watching. That's what I run hands-off.

If you're new, start on 5m and 15m only. Add 1m later if and only if you're actively at the desk during NY session.

Guardrails (wizard step 5)

Hard floors and ceilings. If any of them trip, Monko refuses to fire.

Risk caps

🪤 Per-symbol cap is huge for Apex. Apex caps MGC at 3 contracts. Set it here and Monko refuses to over-size on gold even if your other limits would allow it.

Account

• ▸Account allowlist — comma-separated Tradovate account IDs. Empty = all connected accounts. Lock this down if you have multiple sub-accounts and only want one of them auto-traded.

Quality

• ▸Min signal grade — A+ (rarest), A (default, balanced), or B (loosest)

Time

• ▸Sessions — five toggleable windows: Asia, London, NY Premarket, New York, NY Postmarket. All ET-anchored. Disable any session you don't want trading in.
• ▸Pre-prop cutoff (ET) — default 15:55. Blocks new entries between 15:55–16:00 ET so you don't get caught by the EOD trail sweep on prop accounts.
• ▸Block macro windows — default ON. Stands down during FOMC, CPI, NFP. Prevents news-wick stop-outs.

Frequency

Mode

• ▸Autopilot — auto (Monko fires on its own) or manual (every signal needs your confirm)
• ▸Degen mode — ⚠️ bypasses analyzer + gates + TP, tight trail only. Don't touch this on a real account.

Bucko Assassin Mode — how exits actually work

Every autopilot user is on Bucko Assassin Mode — the active-trail exit engine that replaced the legacy fixed-SL / fixed-TP model. There's nothing to enable; it's on by default for everyone.

The phase ratchet (one-way only — phase never retreats):

🎯 The trail is your primary exit. The take-profit is Pine's structural target as a clean profit-take. OCO bracket: TP fires first → take the structural win. Trail fires first → trail handles the giveback. Big runner past Pine's TP — TP closes it (capped at structural, by design).

SL aggression presets (in the prefs editor)

If you want to override Pine's structural SL with a fixed tick-based stop, use the SL aggression dropdown:

💡 Custom dollar overrides flow through everywhere now — autopilot Assassin AND manual TRADE-button fires. Set $50 SL / $100 TP and that's exactly what gets dispatched per contract on whatever symbol fires. No need to know the tick math per symbol.

Per-target qty cap

Your global maxContractsPerOrder ceiling is now re-applied per copier account AFTER any scaleFactor. So if you set max=2, no single account ever dispatches more than 2 contracts — regardless of whether one of your accounts has scaleFactor=3 configured. If you want size scaling, set maxContractsPerOrder to match your highest intended scaled qty.

⚠️ Multi-account fan-out is by design. A user with 3 enabled copier accounts × 2 contracts each = 6 contracts total across all accounts (2 per account). Each account is capped at the global ceiling individually; the total is the sum. If you don't want fan-out, disable extra accounts in Copy Trading.

DLL-derived qty clamp

If your copier account has a Daily Loss Limit configured (set via the Apex/Lucid/etc. firm template), Bucko caps each trade's risk at DLL ÷ 5. This means up to 5 max-loss trips before WatchDog locks you out — a hard floor that prevents one bad day from blowing the eval. If a signal can't fit even 1 contract within DLL/5, you'll see [assassin · skipped_dll] in The Vines.

Consistency rule

Critical for prop accounts.

WatchDog — daily loss/profit lockout

WatchDog is the always-on AI safety agent that flattens your accounts when you hit your daily loss or profit cap, then locks Monko down for the rest of the trading day. It's separate from the consistency rule above — caps are dollar-based, fire immediately, and apply across every lane (futures + crypto + stocks).

When WatchDog fires:

1. ▸All open positions on every connected account get flattened immediately
2. ▸New entries are blocked across signals, banana plays, and manual dispatch
3. ▸The yellow stand-down banner shows up on your Monko dashboard
4. ▸Lockout auto-clears at the next ET trading-day rollover (18:00 ET / CME daily reset)

🔓 Reset WatchDog button (in the stand-down banner): clears today's lockout WITHOUT changing your daily limits. WatchDog stays enabled — if you breach the cap again, lockout fires again. Distinct from "turn off WatchDog" which silences the auto-flatten entirely. The audit row [watchdog · manual_reset] in The Vines shows when this gets used.

🛡 Why this is different from your TradersPost daily-loss limit. TradersPost's limit kicks in at the broker level after fills are reconciled. WatchDog reads your live broker P&L every 2 minutes (24/7) AND on every signal, so it catches an open winner running past your cap before the next signal arrives. Both layers fire — WatchDog is the faster one.

Step 9 — Going live

When the wizard is green across all 5 steps:

1. ▸Flip Monko On
2. ▸Switch autopilot to Auto (or leave on Manual if you want to confirm each fire)
3. ▸Watch the Monko · LIVE pill in the top-left turn green and pulse

The next signal that passes all gates fires through TradersPost in under 1 second. Watch The Vines for the live audit log — every decision, every gate evaluation, every reject reason is recorded there.

Best-practice defaults — quick reference card

Common gotchas

"Monko isn't firing"

Check the wizard's 5 steps — every one must be green. Then check Guardrails: did kill-switch trip? Did you hit the daily loss cap? Is the session disabled? Is your grade filter set to A+ only on a slow day?

"Monko fired but TradersPost rejected"

Usually one of:

• ▸TradersPost strategy disabled
• ▸Quantity calculation method ≠ None (TradersPost overwrote Monko's qty)
• ▸Asset class mismatch (strategy is Stocks, signal is Futures)
• ▸Account in flat-only state on the broker
• ▸Daily loss limit on the broker side

Open the TradersPost dashboard → your strategy → log to see the exact reject reason.

"1m fired and the order rejected — now I'm naked"

This is exactly why I run 5m/15m hands-off. On the 1m, by the time you notice the reject, price has moved 5+ ticks. The Cancel open entry order after delay: 60s setting in TradersPost is your safety net — abandoned entries auto-clean — but it's not a substitute for eyeballs. Don't run the 1m unless you're watching.

"My fills aren't showing on the Bucko dashboard"

Bucko reads positions directly from your connected Tradovate account. If the green "Tradovate ✓ X connected" badge in the top-left isn't green, reconnect Tradovate from /dashboard/station. This is unrelated to TradersPost.

"Monko placed a long when my indicator said short"

Open the placed event in The Vines → tap ▾ view signal to see the exact JSON sent. If the signal looks right but the broker went the other way, check your TradersPost strategy for a "Reverse Signal" toggle — it's a backtest helper that flips long/short on every webhook. People leave it on by accident.

"Bucko says I'm already in a position but I'm not"

You're seeing [assassin · already_in_position] in The Vines but your broker shows you flat. This means a monko_positions record got stuck in pending_fill state (the fill callback never arrived — TP rejected at trade-planning, network drop, or position cleared via a side path).

The Assassin cron auto-cleans these after 5 minutes — the next cron tick will mark the ghost record closed ([assassin · stale_cleanup]) and you'll be unblocked. Subsequent same-direction signals will fire normally.

"Bucko fired more contracts than my max says"

Two likely causes:

1. ▸Per-account scaleFactor. If a copier account has scaleFactor: 3.0 set, that account fires 3× your base. The global maxContractsPerOrder ceiling re-applies per-target now (since 2026-05-08) so this can't silently bypass your cap anymore — but check your copier_accounts settings if you weren't expecting any scaling.
2. ▸Multi-account fan-out. 3 enabled accounts × 2 contracts each = 6 contracts total. Each account's individual cap is honored; the total is the sum. Disable extra accounts in Copy Trading if you only want one to trade.

"My TP is showing 10% above entry"

That's the safety-far fallback — only happens when Pine's signal didn't emit a structural TP (rare, usually only on geometry-failed signals). Price never reaches that level before the trail closes the position; trading behavior is unaffected. If you're seeing it on every trade, check that your Pine indicator is on v3.4+ and emitting tp in the webhook payload.

"I want to disconnect"

• ▸Bucko side: Settings → TradersPost panel → Disconnect
• ▸TradersPost side: delete the strategy

Your first week with Monko

Don't go hands-off on day one. Build trust first.

• ▸Day 1–2: Manual autopilot only. Review every signal Monko proposes. Read the Scout brief. Understand why each grade was assigned.
• ▸Day 3–5: Switch to Auto on 5m/15m only. Watch The Vines and the agent briefs. Don't add 1m yet.
• ▸Week 2: Tune guardrails based on what you saw. Maybe add 1m for the NY session if you can sit at the desk. Adjust geometry if your symbols trend tight or wide.
• ▸Ongoing: Hire Chronicler. Read its briefs. Patterns in your own data will tell you what to tighten — better than any default I can publish.

That's the full path. Every Monko decision is logged in The Vines with the exact gate evaluations, signal grade, geometry math, and order JSON. Nothing is mysterious. Nothing is hidden. If something's off, the log tells you why.

Welcome to Monko.

— YoungBuffett, Founder, Bucko.ai