Team kit · Guide 14
The team's tools: the stack by job
In one lineThe team needs nine jobs done, not nine subscriptions; for each job this guide says what the tool is for, what free and paid versions generally give you, what never to paste into it, and a two-minute setup step.
What you'll get
- The stack by job: think, see, schedule, record, keep, enforce, capture, measure, test.
- A minimum kit that costs nothing, and a comfortable kit.
- A privacy line for every tool.
- The limits of no-code strategy testers, stated plainly.
1Choose by job, not by brand
Tools change their names, their plans and their features several times a year. Jobs don't. So this guide is organised by the job each tool does on the team. Where a product is named, it is an example that fits the job, not a recommendation, and there are no affiliate links anywhere in this library. Check each tool's own help pages for what it offers today.
| Job | Tool type | Examples | The team uses it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Think | AI chat | Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini | Every seat and every prompt |
| See | Charting | TradingView, or your broker's platform | Screenshots, levels, alerts |
| Schedule | Economic calendar | A calendar site, plus the central banks' own pages | The rows the News agent reads |
| Record | Spreadsheet | Google Sheets, Excel, any table that exports CSV | Journal and test logs |
| Keep | Notes workspace | Notion, Apple Notes, Obsidian or any notes app | Rules file, sheets, memos, briefs |
| Enforce | Platform risk settings | Your trading platform or broker portal | The first line of defence |
| Capture | Screenshot tool | Built into your computer | Chart images, debrief evidence |
| Measure | Data export | Your charting platform's CSV export or data window | Exact levels, tagged (data) |
| Test (optional) | Bar replay, strategy tester | Built into many charting platforms | The evidence ladder, rungs 3 and 4 |
2Think: the AI chat
What it's for. All of it: the agent team, the helpers and the research seats. One account is enough.
What to look for, by capability, since names change: it reads images. It lets you save standing instructions in a workspace (Guide 02). It accepts a file upload for the journal. It has a step-by-step reasoning mode for the Risk Manager and the Evidence Checker. Web browsing is optional and the team doesn't depend on it. Some tools can also run a saved prompt on a schedule.
Free or paid. Free tiers are fine for trying the prompts. They usually limit the number of messages, image uploads and access to the strongest models. The daily routine uses roughly a dozen messages and three or four images, so a paid plan is more comfortable. Look at your tool's current plan page.
Never paste: broker or prop-firm passwords, two-factor codes, API keys, full account numbers, ID documents. Crop account numbers out of screenshots. The team works in R, so your balance doesn't have to be there either.
Two-minute setup. Create one workspace called "Team". Paste the team setup prompt as its standing instructions. Open the data settings and decide, on purpose, whether your chats may be used to improve the provider's models.
3See: charting
What it's for. The screenshots the Analyst and Researcher read, the levels you verify, and price alerts at your watch zones so you aren't staring at the screen.
Free or paid. Free charting is enough to run the team: you need clean charts, a few saved lines and a screenshot. Paid plans on most platforms add more alerts, more indicators per chart, more history on small timeframes, and data export. TradingView is the common example; many brokers' own platforms do the same job.
Never paste: nothing goes into a chart, but mind what's on it. Hide the account panel before you capture.
Two-minute setup. Save one layout called "Team" with your three timeframes, the price and time scales visible, prior-day high and low drawn, and no more than two indicators. Set the chart's time zone to the one in your rules file.
4Schedule: the economic calendar
What it's for. The source of the rows you paste to the News agent each morning. The AI never supplies events from memory.
Free or paid. Free. Calendar sites list scheduled releases with times and an impact rating. For the events that matter most, the institutions publish their own dates, and those pages are the primary source: the Federal Reserve's meeting calendar, the European Central Bank's, the Bank of England's, and the statistics agencies' release schedules.
Never paste: nothing private is involved. The risk here is different: a calendar shown in the wrong time zone. Set the site's time zone once and write it in your rules file.
Two-minute setup. Pick one calendar. Set its time zone. Filter to your currencies. Each morning, select today's rows, copy them as text and paste them to the News agent.
5Record: the spreadsheet
What it's for. The journal (Guide 08) and the test log for any playbook brief (Guide 11). Its other job is to be the place where sums are checked. A spreadsheet adds a column correctly every time. A language model usually does. When the Evidence Checker and the spreadsheet disagree, the spreadsheet is right.
Free or paid. Free. Any spreadsheet or table that keeps fixed columns and exports CSV will do.
Never paste: account numbers or login details in a notes column. If the sheet is shared, check who it's shared with.
Two-minute setup. New sheet. Paste the journal header row from Guide 16. Freeze the top row. Add a total under result_r, so there's always a figure to check the reviewer against.
6Keep: the notes workspace
What it's for. One home for the things that must exist in exactly one live version: your rules file, risk sheet, prop sheet, playbook briefs, saved memos and weekly reviews. A notes app with tables (Notion, for example) holds all of it. Any notes app you already use works too. What matters is one copy, dated.
Free or paid. Varies by tool. The team needs only plain notes and a table.
Never paste: credentials of any kind. A rules file doesn't need your account number to work.
Two-minute setup. Create a folder or board called "Team". Add five notes: Rules file, Risk sheet, This week's change, Memos, Reviews. Put the date at the top of the first two.
7Enforce: platform risk settings
What it's for. The first line of defence (Guide 07): limits that act whether or not you ask. Names differ by platform, so look for these functions in your platform's risk or account settings, or your broker's or firm's portal:
- A daily loss limit: positions closed and new orders refused once the day's loss reaches a number.
- A maximum position size.
- Bracket orders by default: every entry sent with a stop and a target attached. On many platforms the pair is linked as OCO (one cancels the other).
- A trading-hours lock, where offered.
Free or paid. Part of the platform or account you already have. Not every platform offers every limit. Write "not offered" in Part B of your risk sheet where one is missing.
Never paste: this is the one place your real credentials belong, and they stay there. Never paste them into a chat, a browser extension or an "assistant". The execution agent connects through the broker or prop-firm API with its own key, kept in the system's config, and only inside the limits set here.
Two-minute setup. Find the daily loss limit and set it to your daily stop. Save one bracket template with your stop and target attached and make it the default.
8Capture and measure
Capture: screenshots. Your computer's built-in screenshot tool is all you need. Capture the chart area only, with both scales visible and the latest bar on the right. Never capture the account panel, order history with account numbers, or a browser tab bar showing other accounts. Two-minute setup: learn the shortcut for "capture a selected area" and set screenshots to save into one folder.
Measure: exporting chart data. For exact levels (prior day high, overnight low, the opening range) the team prefers numbers to image reads. Many charting platforms can export the bars on your chart as a CSV file. On TradingView, chart data export is a paid-plan feature at the time of writing. If your platform has no export, read the values from its data window and type them in. Either way they get the (data) tag. Never paste more than you need: a few dozen rows of open, high, low, close. Two-minute setup: export or copy yesterday's bars once, paste them into a chat and ask for the prior day's high, low and close, then check the three numbers against your chart.
9Test (optional): bar replay and strategy testers
What they're for. Rungs 3 and 4 of the evidence ladder (Guide 11), without writing code.
Bar replay hides the future and reveals the chart one bar at a time, so you can apply a locked brief by hand and log each qualifying day. It is slow and it is honest, provided every call is logged before the next bar is revealed. On most platforms, how far back you can replay small timeframes depends on your plan.
A strategy tester runs a scripted rule over history and prints a report. Using a ready-made script needs no coding. Treat the report as a rough first look and nothing more, because of what it usually leaves out:
- Fills. Orders are assumed filled at chart prices. Real spread and slippage are absent unless you enter them.
- Costs. Often zero by default. Set commission and slippage before you read any number.
- History. Limited on small timeframes, so the sample may cover only recent conditions.
- Look-ahead. Some scripts quietly use information from a bar before it has closed. The report gives no warning.
- The settings panel. Every input you nudge after seeing the report is a setting chosen after seeing results. Five minutes with the sliders can produce a result that means nothing.
A tester's report is a backtest export like any other. Paste its trade list into the Evidence Checker and read "what this does NOT prove".
Never paste: nothing private is involved. The risk is believing the report.
Two-minute setup. Open bar replay on your instrument, go back one month, and step through a single session with your setup sheet in front of you, saying "trade" or "no trade" before each reveal.
10Minimum kit and comfortable kit
| Job | Minimum kit (free) | Comfortable kit |
|---|---|---|
| Think | One AI chat on a free tier, team setup pasted as the first message if there is no workspace | A paid plan: saved workspace, more images, a reasoning mode, file upload |
| See | Free charting, one saved layout | A paid charting plan: more alerts, more intraday history |
| Schedule | One free calendar site plus the central banks' own pages | The same |
| Record | A free spreadsheet | The same, with the journal as a table in your workspace |
| Keep | Any notes app | One workspace holding sheets, memos and briefs together |
| Enforce | Whatever limits your platform offers | The same. This is never optional |
| Capture | Built-in screenshot tool | The same |
| Measure | Values typed from the data window | CSV export from your charting platform |
| Test | Bar replay on daily bars, or forward demo only | Intraday bar replay, a strategy tester with costs set |
The minimum kit runs the whole team. The comfortable kit saves typing. Neither changes what the team can and can't do.
11Worked example: a kit check
Illustrative.
A trader goes down the nine jobs with what they already have.
- Think: a paid AI chat plan, already in use. Workspace created on Guide 02. Data setting checked.
- See: free charting. Layout saved. One gap: the chart was in exchange time and the rules file says New York. Fixed.
- Schedule: two calendar sites open in different tabs, in different time zones. Kept one, set its zone.
- Record: journal sheet exists. No total under
result_r. Added. - Keep: rules file in three places (a note, a document, an old chat). Two deleted.
- Enforce: daily loss limit found and set. Trading-hours lock not offered. Written in Part B.
- Capture: screenshots were landing on the desktop with the account panel visible. Now a selected-area capture into a "Team" folder.
- Measure: no export on the free plan. Values typed from the data window.
- Test: bar replay available on daily bars only. Rung 3 of any intraday brief will be forward demo.
Twenty minutes. Nothing bought. Three real problems found: a time zone, three copies of the rules, an account number in every screenshot.
12Official pages
Checked when this guide was written. These are the makers' own pages, with no affiliate links. If a link has moved, search for the tool's name and "help".
- Claude: https://claude.com/ · help: https://support.claude.com/
- Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ · help: https://support.google.com/gemini/
- ChatGPT: from OpenAI's website or app.
- TradingView: https://www.tradingview.com/ · plans: https://www.tradingview.com/pricing/
- TradingView bar replay help: https://www.tradingview.com/support/solutions/43000712747-bar-replay-how-and-why-to-test-a-strategy-in-the-past/
- TradingView strategy report help: https://www.tradingview.com/support/solutions/43000764138-tradingview-strategy-report-how-to-start/
- TradingView on exporting chart data: https://www.tradingview.com/blog/en/export-chart-data-in-csv-14395/
- Economic calendars: https://www.tradingview.com/economic-calendar/ · https://www.fxstreet.com/economic-calendar
- Federal Reserve meeting calendar: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm
- European Central Bank calendar: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/calendars/mgcgc/html/index.en.html
- Bank of England meeting dates: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/upcoming-mpc-dates
- US Bureau of Economic Analysis release schedule: https://www.bea.gov/news/schedule
- Google Sheets: https://workspace.google.com/products/sheets/
13Common mistakes
- Buying tools to feel ready. The minimum kit runs the team. Upgrade a job only when it's the thing slowing you down.
- Two calendars, two time zones. One calendar, one zone, written in the rules file.
- Pasting logins or API keys into a chat or extension. The execution agent reaches the account through the broker API, with keys kept in config, never in a chat.
- Trusting a strategy tester's first report. Costs off, settings tuned, history short.
- Account details in screenshots. Capture the chart area only.