Most automation tools default to maximum capability — connect your account and the system starts trading immediately. VelaDeck takes the opposite approach: live trading is off by default for every user, requires an explicit per-user toggle, and depends on a server-level kill switch. The reason why live trading should be opt-in is mechanical, not philosophical.
Paper mode is the safe baseline for every account
When you first connect an Alpaca account to VelaDeck, the system starts in paper mode. Signals fire, planned orders appear in the dashboard, and the ingester diffs strategy compositions every day — all of it exactly as it would in live trading. The only difference is that nothing gets submitted to Alpaca until you opt in.
This is deliberate. The most valuable thing you can do in paper mode is watch one full rebalance cycle end to end. Check that the signals match what the strategy actually changed. Confirm that orders are sized correctly to your notional. Verify that fills come back from Alpaca with a price and quantity. If any part of the pipeline has a misconfiguration, you want to catch it before real money is involved.
Two conditions must both be true before any live order fires
Going live requires two independent conditions to be true simultaneously.
First, a server-level kill switch — the `VELADECK_LIVE_TRADING` environment variable — must be set to 1. This is a platform-wide control that disables live order submission entirely, regardless of what individual users have set. It functions as a master circuit breaker: if a bug is found in the execution layer, live trading can be shut off for the entire platform by changing one environment variable — no database updates, no user-by-user intervention needed.
Second, each user must explicitly enable live trading in Settings. Even when the server-level switch is on, every account defaults to paper. No one is opted in automatically. The per-user toggle is the mechanism by which you confirm you have seen the pipeline working correctly and you are ready to deploy real funds.
Both conditions must be true at the same time. If the server kill switch is off, no live orders go out regardless of user settings. If a user's toggle is off, that user's orders stay in planned status even while other users on the same platform are trading live.
What to verify during paper mode before switching to live
Two full rebalance cycles is a reasonable minimum for monthly strategies — roughly two months of paper trading before enabling live.
- **Signal direction**: BUY should appear for tickers entering the composition, SELL for tickers leaving, REWEIGHT for tickers that stayed but changed weight. Unexpected signal directions usually point to a misconfigured allocation.
- **Order sizing**: Each BUY notional should equal your total allocation divided by the number of holdings. A $3,000 allocation to a 15-name strategy should produce $200 BUY orders. Off-by-more-than-rounding means something is configured incorrectly.
- **Fill confirmation**: In paper mode, Alpaca simulates fills at market prices. Confirm that each sent order comes back with a `filled_avg_price` and `filled_qty`. An order stuck in 'sent' without a fill indicates a connection issue worth resolving in paper rather than discovering mid-live.
- **Monthly cap behavior**: If you set a monthly cap, check whether any orders landed in `skipped_over_cap`. A cap set too tight for the strategy's normal turnover will leave holdings unpurchased and your portfolio drifting from the model.
See [paper trading account best practices](/blog/paper-trading-account-best-practices) for the full pre-live verification checklist.
Live and paper orders run through the same pipeline
Signal generation and order planning are identical in paper and live mode. VelaDeck does not have a separate live execution path — the ingester, the diff engine, and the order planner run the same code in both modes. The only divergence is at order submission: planned orders for a user with live trading enabled get submitted to Alpaca; everyone else's stay as planned.
This means what you observed in paper is what you get in live, minus timing differences in how market orders fill. The signal logic, sizing rules, idempotency guarantees, and monthly cap behavior are all unchanged. See [how VelaDeck automates monthly rebalancing](/blog/how-veladeck-automates-alpaca-rebalancing) for a full description of the ingester and execution path.
Why opt-in is the right default for live trading
Automation that defaults to live trading does not give you time to verify the configuration is correct — it starts acting on real money the moment it can. Any misconfiguration costs you before you notice it.
The opt-in design adds friction deliberately. You have to take an explicit action to commit real capital. VelaDeck is not an investment advisor and does not custody your funds — your money stays in your own Alpaca account, under your control. Keeping deployment opt-in keeps that control with you, not with the system.
Past and simulated strategy performance is not a forecast of future results. The historical return figures in the [strategy catalog](/strategies) reflect backtested data, not guarantees about what any strategy will do going forward.
Where is the live trading toggle?
In Settings, under your Alpaca connection. It is a single toggle — off by default. Flipping it to on means subsequent planned orders for your live Alpaca account will be submitted to Alpaca. Orders already in planned status are not affected retroactively — they stay as planned until the next signal cycle.
Can I switch back to paper mode after enabling live trading?
Yes. Flipping the toggle back to off immediately stops new live order submissions. Orders already submitted to Alpaca stay in your account — VelaDeck does not cancel or reverse existing fills. If you want to reconcile what VelaDeck thinks you hold against your actual Alpaca positions after switching modes, the sync tool rebuilds the ledger from the current strategy composition.
What happens to planned orders from my paper period when I go live?
They remain in the dashboard history as a record of what the pipeline generated during paper mode. They are not resubmitted to your live account. The live phase starts from the next composition diff after you enable live trading. If you want to build a live position that mirrors the current strategy composition immediately rather than waiting for the next diff, the sync tool generates SYNC orders for the gap.
Does live trading change how signals are generated?
No. The ingester diffs strategy compositions the same way regardless of how many users have live trading enabled. Signal generation, order planning, and sizing rules are all upstream of the live versus paper decision. The only difference between the two modes is whether planned orders get submitted to Alpaca at the execution stage.
Can I paper-trade one strategy while live-trading another?
The live trading toggle applies to the Alpaca account connection, not to individual strategies. If you enable live trading, all strategies that have a connected live Alpaca account and an assigned notional will submit orders live. To paper-trade one strategy while running another live, use two separate Alpaca accounts — one paper, one live — and assign each to its respective strategy allocation. [Sign up at VelaDeck](/signup) to get started with paper trading first.