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Vendor & Tools Reference

Complete reference for every external service, API, and tool the QGTM.AI platform depends on. Includes setup instructions, pricing, and account requirements.

Tier 1 — Critical Path (Required)

Alpaca Markets — Broker & Market Data

  • What: Commission-free stock/ETF trading API + real-time market data
  • URL: https://alpaca.markets
  • Account type: Paper trading (free) → Live trading (requires approval)
  • API docs: https://docs.alpaca.markets
  • Pricing: Free for paper trading. Live: commission-free trades, $0/mo for basic market data
  • Setup:
  • Sign up at https://app.alpaca.markets
  • Navigate to Paper Trading → API Keys
  • Generate API key + secret
  • Add to .env as ALPACA_API_KEY and ALPACA_SECRET_KEY
  • Rate limits: 200 requests/minute (data), unlimited orders on paper
  • Used by: qgtm_data, qgtm_execution, qgtm_live
  • Notes: Paper keys use https://paper-api.alpaca.markets. Live uses https://api.alpaca.markets. NEVER mix these up. The QGTM_LIVE_TRADING_ENABLED flag is the final gate.

GitHub — Source Control & CI/CD

  • URL: https://github.com/QGTMAI/trading
  • Account: QGTMAI organization
  • Pricing: Free (public) or $4/user/mo (Team plan for private repos)
  • Used for: Code hosting, Actions CI/CD, issue tracking, PR reviews, environment protection rules

Tier 2 — Data Providers

EIA (Energy Information Administration)

  • What: US government energy data — crude/gas inventories, production, rig counts
  • URL: https://www.eia.gov/opendata/
  • API docs: https://www.eia.gov/opendata/documentation.php
  • Pricing: Free (government API)
  • Setup: Register at https://www.eia.gov/opendata/register.php → get API key
  • Key reports:
  • Weekly Petroleum Status Report (Wednesday 10:30 AM ET)
  • Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report (Thursday 10:30 AM ET)
  • Short-Term Energy Outlook (monthly)
  • Drilling Productivity Report
  • Rate limits: 100 requests/sec
  • Used by: qgtm_data/eia.py

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)

  • What: Macro economic data — USD index, yields, breakevens, VIX, PMIs
  • URL: https://fred.stlouisfed.org
  • API docs: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/fred/
  • Pricing: Free
  • Setup: Register at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html
  • Key series: DTWEXBGS (DXY), DFII10 (real yields), T10YIE (breakevens), VIXCLS, DCOILWTICO (WTI)
  • Rate limits: 120 requests/minute
  • Used by: qgtm_data/fred.py
  • What: Commitments of Traders positioning data — speculative/commercial positioning
  • URL: https://data.nasdaq.com
  • API docs: https://docs.data.nasdaq.com
  • Pricing: Free for most COT data. Premium datasets: $30-500/mo
  • Setup: Register at https://data.nasdaq.com → get API key
  • Key data: Disaggregated COT for crude, gold, silver, copper, corn, wheat, soybeans
  • Used by: qgtm_data/cftc.py

USDA (US Department of Agriculture)

  • What: Crop data — WASDE, crop progress, export sales, planted acres
  • URL: https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov
  • API docs: https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/api
  • Pricing: Free (government API)
  • Setup: Register for API key
  • Key reports:
  • WASDE (monthly, ~12th of each month)
  • Crop Progress (weekly, Mondays during growing season)
  • Prospective Plantings (March)
  • Grain Stocks (quarterly)
  • Used by: qgtm_data

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

  • What: Weather data — temperature, precipitation, hurricane tracking, ENSO
  • URL: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/
  • API docs: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/webservices/v2
  • Pricing: Free
  • Setup: Request token at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token
  • Used by: qgtm_altdata — natural gas demand (heating/cooling degree days), agriculture weather impact

Databento (Optional — Backup Data)

  • What: Institutional-grade historical and real-time market data
  • URL: https://databento.com
  • Pricing: Pay-per-use. Historical: from $0.0025/symbol-day. Real-time: varies by exchange
  • Why: Tick-level data backup, CME/ICE futures data for term structure signals
  • Setup: Sign up → generate API key
  • Used by: qgtm_data (backup/validation layer)

Polygon.io (Optional — Backup Data)

  • What: Stock, options, forex, crypto market data
  • URL: https://polygon.io
  • Pricing: Free (5 req/min) → Starter $29/mo → Developer $79/mo → Advanced $199/mo
  • Used by: qgtm_data (backup/validation)

Tier 3 — Infrastructure

Cloudflare — CDN, DNS, Edge Compute, Storage

  • URL: https://dash.cloudflare.com
  • Products used:
  • Pages: Static frontend hosting (Next.js) — Free tier: unlimited sites
  • Workers: Edge compute for API proxying — Free tier: 100K req/day
  • R2: Object storage for ArcticDB and backtest artifacts — Free tier: 10GB storage, 10M read/mo
  • DNS: Domain management — Free
  • WAF: Web application firewall — Free managed rules
  • Pricing: Free tier covers development. Pro plan $20/mo for production features
  • Setup:
  • Create account at https://dash.cloudflare.com
  • Add zone for qgtm.ai once domain is purchased
  • Generate API token with Zone:Edit, Workers:Edit, R2:Edit scopes
  • Used by: Frontend hosting, DNS, CDN, object storage, edge API

Fly.io — Backend Hosting

  • What: App platform for running Docker containers globally
  • URL: https://fly.io
  • Pricing: Free tier: 3 shared VMs. Pro: from $0.0035/sec per machine
  • Products used:
  • API server (qgtm_api)
  • Live trading daemon (qgtm_live)
  • Signal publisher (qgtm_signals)
  • Data worker (qgtm_data)
  • Setup:
  • Install flyctl: brew install flyctl
  • flyctl auth login
  • Create apps per service
  • Alternative: DigitalOcean App Platform ($5/mo base) — use if Fly.io doesn't meet needs. Write an ADR.

Neon — Serverless PostgreSQL

  • What: Serverless Postgres with branching (great for dev/staging)
  • URL: https://neon.tech
  • Pricing: Free tier: 0.5GB storage, 190 compute hours. Pro: $19/mo
  • Setup:
  • Create project at https://console.neon.tech
  • Copy connection string
  • Add to .env as DATABASE_URL
  • Alternative: Supabase (free tier: 500MB, includes auth)
  • Used by: qgtm_api, qgtm_signals — metadata, subscribers, signal history

Upstash — Serverless Redis

  • What: Serverless Redis with REST API
  • URL: https://upstash.com
  • Pricing: Free tier: 10K commands/day. Pay-as-you-go: $0.2 per 100K commands
  • Setup:
  • Create Redis database at https://console.upstash.com
  • Enable TLS
  • Copy Redis URL
  • Add to .env as REDIS_URL
  • Used by: qgtm_live (hot state), qgtm_signals (pub/sub), qgtm_api (caching)

Doppler — Secrets Management

  • What: Centralized secrets management with environment-specific configs
  • URL: https://doppler.com
  • Pricing: Free tier: 5 team members. Team: $6/user/mo
  • Setup:
  • brew install dopplerhq/cli/doppler
  • doppler login
  • Create project qgtm-trading with development, staging, production environments
  • Import secrets from .env
  • Used by: All services in staging/production

Tier 4 — Signals Business

Stripe — Payments & Subscriptions

  • What: Payment processing for signal subscriptions
  • URL: https://stripe.com
  • Pricing: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
  • Setup:
  • Create account at https://dashboard.stripe.com
  • START IN TEST MODE — use sk_test_... keys only
  • Create products: Pro (\(49/mo), Elite (\)149/mo), Institutional ($499/mo)
  • Set up webhooks for customer.subscription.created, invoice.paid, invoice.payment_failed
  • Add keys to .env: STRIPE_SECRET_KEY, STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET, STRIPE_PRICE_*
  • Live mode: Only after legal review and compliance checklist (see docs/compliance.md)
  • Used by: qgtm_api

Discord — Community & Signal Delivery

  • What: Community platform for signal delivery and discussion
  • URL: https://discord.com/developers
  • Pricing: Free
  • Setup:
  • Create application at Discord Developer Portal
  • Create bot user → copy token
  • Set intents: Message Content, Server Members, Guilds
  • Generate invite URL with permissions: Send Messages, Manage Roles, Read Messages
  • Create server with channels: #signals-free, #signals-pro, #signals-elite, #performance, #research, #general
  • Set up roles matching subscription tiers
  • Used by: qgtm_bot

Telegram — Signal Mirror

  • What: Alternative signal delivery channel
  • URL: https://t.me/BotFather
  • Setup: Create bot via @BotFather → copy token
  • Used by: qgtm_bot

Resend — Transactional Email

  • What: Email API for signal digests and notifications
  • URL: https://resend.com
  • Pricing: Free tier: 3,000 emails/mo. Pro: $20/mo
  • Setup: Sign up → verify domain → get API key
  • Used by: qgtm_signals (email channel)

Clerk — Authentication

  • What: Drop-in auth with RBAC for the web platform
  • URL: https://clerk.com
  • Pricing: Free tier: 10,000 MAU. Pro: $25/mo
  • Setup:
  • Create application
  • Configure social logins (Google, GitHub)
  • Set up roles: viewer, trader, admin, subscriber_free, subscriber_pro, subscriber_elite
  • Copy keys to .env
  • Alternative: Auth.js (NextAuth) — free, self-hosted. Requires more setup.
  • Used by: qgtm_web, qgtm_api

Tier 5 — Monitoring & Observability

Grafana Cloud — Dashboards & Alerting

  • URL: https://grafana.com/products/cloud/
  • Pricing: Free tier: 10K metrics, 50GB logs, 50GB traces
  • Dashboards to build:
  • Trading PnL (daily, cumulative, by strategy)
  • Risk metrics (drawdown, leverage, exposure by sector)
  • System health (API latency, error rates, broker connectivity)
  • Signal delivery (latency, success rate, subscriber count)
  • Used by: All services (emit Prometheus metrics)

Sentry — Error Tracking

  • URL: https://sentry.io
  • Pricing: Free tier: 5K events/mo. Team: $26/mo
  • Setup: Create project → copy DSN → add to .env
  • Used by: All services

Tier 6 — Development Tools

uv — Python Package Manager

  • URL: https://github.com/astral-sh/uv
  • Install: brew install uv
  • Why: 10-100x faster than pip, lockfile support, built-in venv management

pnpm — JavaScript Package Manager

  • URL: https://pnpm.io
  • Install: corepack enable && corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate
  • Why: Faster, more disk-efficient than npm/yarn

Docker — Containerization

  • URL: https://docker.com
  • Install: Docker Desktop for Mac/Windows
  • Used for: Local development (docker compose up), production deployment

DuckDB — Analytical Queries

  • URL: https://duckdb.org
  • Why: Embedded OLAP database, perfect for ad-hoc research queries on Parquet files
  • Install: Included in Python deps (pip install duckdb)

Polars — DataFrames

  • URL: https://pola.rs
  • Why: 10-100x faster than pandas, native Rust backend, lazy evaluation
  • Install: Included in Python deps

Domain Registration (When Ready to Deploy)

qgtm.ai

  • Registrar options: Cloudflare Registrar (at-cost pricing), Namecheap, Google Domains
  • Estimated cost: $15-30/year for .ai domain
  • Action: Do NOT register until deploy day. When ready, follow docs/runbooks/deploy.md Step 1.

Cost Estimate (Monthly, Post-Launch)

Service Plan Monthly Cost
Alpaca Free (commission-free) $0
EIA/FRED/USDA/NOAA/CFTC Free (government) $0
Cloudflare Pro $20
Fly.io 4 machines ~$30-60
Neon Postgres Pro $19
Upstash Redis Pay-as-you-go ~$5-10
Doppler Free tier $0
Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 per txn Variable
Discord Free $0
Clerk Free tier $0
Grafana Cloud Free tier $0
Sentry Free tier $0
Domain (qgtm.ai) Annual ~$2/mo
Total (pre-revenue) ~$76-111/mo