The three criteria
Your agent becomes ELIGIBLE when, over its evaluation window, it satisfies all of the following at the same time:Positive expectancy after fees
The agent’s average trade outcome — accounting for wins, losses, swap fees, and gas costs — must be positive. This is calculated as:
Expectancy = (win rate × average win) − (loss rate × average loss) − feesFees here means the real cost of each trade: pool swap fees and the gas paid on BSC. An agent that looks profitable before costs but breaks even or loses after them is not ELIGIBLE. The definition of “profitable” never changes across configurations — only the thresholds in your chosen preset move.
At least the trade floor of closed trades
Expectancy calculated from two or three trades is noise, not signal. The trade floor is the minimum number of closed (fully exited) trades required before the expectancy figure is statistically meaningful. Until your agent has reached this floor, the evaluation shows “Evaluating — not enough trades yet” regardless of how good the early results look.The trade floor is set by your evaluation preset — see the table below.
The evaluation window
The evaluation window starts when your agent starts running and has a minimum duration that depends on your preset. At the end of the window, the agent checks whether all three criteria are met. If the trade floor has not been reached by the end of the window, the window automatically extends. The agent keeps running and keeps accumulating trades until it has enough closed positions for the expectancy figure to be trustworthy. There is no hard timeout — the window grows until the floor is met or a max-drawdown breach ends the run. This means an agent that rarely trades will take longer to reach ELIGIBLE. That is correct behaviour, not a bug.Evaluation presets
When you spawn an agent, you choose a preset (or go Custom). Each preset sets the evaluation window length, the trade floor, and the drawdown caps together — they are designed as coherent sets.| Preset | Evaluation window | Trade floor | Max drawdown | Daily drawdown | Max consecutive losses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 14 days | 15 trades | 15% | 5% | 3 |
| Balanced (default) | 7 days | 10 trades | 20% | 8% | 4 |
| Aggressive | 5 days | 8 trades | 25% | 12% | 5 |
- Conservative — prove it slowly, fail safe. A longer window and higher trade floor mean the expectancy figure is based on more evidence before the agent is considered ready.
- Balanced — the honest middle. The default for most agents; a reasonable window and sample size without being overly conservative.
- Aggressive — reach ELIGIBLE faster, with a shorter window and lower trade floor. The evidence is shakier, the risk tolerances are wider, and the agent accepts higher drawdowns.
What ELIGIBLE means
ELIGIBLE is a signal, not a trigger. When your agent reaches ELIGIBLE, the dashboard shows a green outline badge reading “Ready for live — your call.” Nothing else happens automatically. You still decide when — or whether — to promote the agent to live trading. You can wait, keep observing, or promote immediately. Per the default configuration, there is no auto-promotion; that decision stays with you.You can also promote your agent to live before it reaches ELIGIBLE. The Settings screen offers a force-promote path with an extra warning. The evaluation criteria exist to give you evidence — they are not a lock on the door.
Dashboard evaluation progress
While your agent is evaluating, the dashboard shows three live progress indicators so you can see how close it is to ELIGIBLE at any moment:- Profitability bar — current expectancy after fees across all closed trades in the window. Tooltip reads: “positive expectancy after fees, over the window.”
- Trade count vs floor — how many closed trades the agent has accumulated versus the floor required by your preset.
- Drawdown headroom — how much room remains before the max-drawdown limit would be breached.
A note on capital and trade frequency
An agent running on a small account with the same fee structure as a larger one will naturally trade less often. Each trade must clear the fee filter — the agent only enters a position when the expected gain exceeds the swap fee and gas cost by a meaningful margin. On a small account, this bar is harder to clear, so trades are less frequent, and reaching the trade floor takes longer. This is the honest signal that the account’s capital is too low for its own cost structure at the current configuration. It is not a reason to weaken the evaluation criteria. The remedy is your capital and configuration choice — tighter presets, a watchlist with more frequent opportunities, or additional capital.Halyrd makes no recommendations about account size. The evaluation criteria do not change based on how much capital you have. A configuration that stalls before ELIGIBLE is accurately reporting that it cannot cover its own costs at your current size — not asking for a lower bar.