Before you install
Each answer states what the build does today, and the line under it opens the route where the mechanism is written out with the file that carries it.
What does the desk run on?
Stochastly is a desktop application for Windows on x64 and for macOS 13.1 or later on Apple silicon. On Windows the setup lands under your own user profile and asks for no administrator elevation, and the engine travels inside the package as a frozen Python tree, so installing an interpreter beforehand is unnecessary for the app itself.
Where do I download the app?
In your account, and an account is required to get the app. Sign in with Google, GitHub or an emailed link, and your account shows the Windows installer and the macOS .dmg, each with its install steps and its SHA-256 checksum. You activate the app by signing in to the same account from the app, and an account that joined the early access receives its access at that moment.
Open full sizeDoes my market data leave the machine?
The engine reads bars from your disk and writes its results there, and a run emits no telemetry unless you tick one of the two optional data-sharing boxes on the sign-in screen, described on the privacy page; both start unticked. Static analysis lists the hosts the package can reach and the role of each destination.
How do I bring my own data in?
Point the desk at a folder. Data → Import scans it and reports what it found: bar files as CSV or Parquet with open, high, low and close (volume is optional, and a MetaTrader tick_volume column is used as the volume when no volume column exists), laid out as one folder per timeframe, as flat SYMBOL_TF files, or as ASCII one-minute archives (one file per month) that are merged and resampled to the timeframe you pick. The CSV / files node on the canvas reads the same folder, and the Markets node lists the instruments it found.
Three levels of market data are read, each by its own node, and they do not play the same role. L1, the bars, is what every backtest runs on. L2 is the tape and the book by level: a Tick tape node reads trades with a timestamp, a price and a size, and computes signed flow, VPIN and impact by trade size; an Order book node reads depth snapshots in wide, long, JSON or BBO layouts. Tape and book feed the inspection displays and execution research, not the bar backtest. L3, the book by order, is read by the same Order book node when an order-id column is present and the file is then flagged as per-order; the queue position is not reconstructed from it today, and no display claims it.
What does the assistant send?
The text you type reaches a relay. When you ask it to read a run, the tool output it quotes — figures from your results, node names from your graph — travels in the next request of that same conversation. Your bar files and your result files are not uploaded, and while the assistant is switched off in Settings the relay receives no request.
Why did a run stop before scoring anything?
The contract is certified before a configuration is scored: your bars are cut at a point in the past, and the graph is replayed on the shorter series. A per-bar difference above the contract tolerance on the overlap ends the run there, and the message names the culprit. When filters are wired, a second probe separates a leaking kernel from a leaking filter.
What does an exported file reproduce?
An exported file carries entries and no position management: no stop, no target, no sizing, no cost model, and the generated file opens on that sentence. The coverage figure beside it is the share of the engine's entries the translated rule also flags, with a two-bar tolerance, measured on synthetic price paths.
What happens when a translation lands under the threshold?
The file is written. What changes is the report: verified turns false and not_verified_because names the measured coverage against the threshold, so the number that failed travels beside the file it describes. A kernel the translator does not cover is a different outcome, and it produces a refusal with no file.
Where do runs, cache and the licence file live?
One directory under your user profile holds runs, the OHLC cache, papers and the licence file. Setting STOCHASTLY_HOME moves them together, and the path is resolved by a function read at each call, so a value computed once at import cannot freeze the first path seen.
What happens if the app cannot confirm my plan?
The app confirms your plan with the server at an interval of 1 hour while it is open. Offline, it keeps working for up to 3 days after the last confirmation, then stops granting its edition until it reaches the server again. A token that does not verify is treated as an absent one: a bad signature, an expiry in the past, or an audience the build does not answer to. Signing in again from the app restores the plan attached to your account.
How do I get access?
Stochastly is in early access. Create an account, answer five short questions, then download the app from your account page and connect it from the app. Early access is free for life on one computer; in return we ask for written feedback. No plan is on sale yet and no payment is taken.
How many computers can I use?
Starter allows one personal workstation; Atelier and Portfolio allow up to two active at a time. To move to a new computer, release one from your account under Computers, then sign in from the new one.
Which countries are served?
No plan is on sale yet. When plans go on sale, they will be sold worldwide, in euros. The only countries not served are those excluded under our sanctions and payment-provider policy: there, the Service, early access included, is unavailable.
How do I cancel?
Cancel any time from your account, under Plan & billing > Manage plan and billing. Access runs to the end of the paid period, and no further payment is taken. A plan starts at once, at your request, and is not refunded once access has started.
How do I reach support?
By email at contact@stochastly.com. We reply within 2 business days, Paris time. Support covers the operation of the software. Strategy design and personal coaching fall outside it.
What can an agent drive over MCP?
The MCP tools need an active plan, and early access counts as one: the server is included in Atelier and Portfolio. Within that plan, the read tools cover the catalogue and the registries, the instruments and their bars, the runs already computed, and the verdict surface. The tools that change something pass a second check that fails closed, and each of those tools carries an effect line the refusal message quotes back to the agent.
How does a check demonstrate that it can fail?
A check builds the defect it was written to catch and confirms that the result fails. If a prerequisite is missing, it returns a third state instead of claiming a pass over an empty measurement.
Where is the domain a result holds over written down?
Under Research, as a register. Each entry names the quantity or the decision it touches, the direction in which it moves a result, and the control the build offers against it today. A reader who skips an entry reads the number wider than it was measured.
Settings, section by section
The Settings dialog groups its options by section. The display section is captured below at its real size, with what it changes.
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