FAQ

What is Nexus? A research-driven quantitative trading platform: a hexagonal, event-driven scalping engine for MetaTrader 5 (primary: XAUUSD M1) with causal features, deep models, an invariant risk engine, deterministic research tooling and forensic observability. See Vision.

Is this a live trading bot? It can execute live trades on MT5 — but PAPER is the default mode, SHADOW carries zero order authority, and LIVE requires explicit interactive confirmation. The repository's own evidence shows rejected candidates; this is a research platform with a runtime, not a money printer.

Can I run it without MT5? Yes — PAPER mode and the full test suite run without a broker. Docker works out of the box in PAPER mode. SHADOW and LIVE need an MT5 terminal (Windows x64).

What is 70D? The canonical research feature contract: 50 base dimensions + 10 news + 10 liquidity. It is not live — the live contract is 50D (scalp_v1). The 70D candidate is rejected so far on OOS evidence. See Status.

What is the difference between research and runtime? Research produces falsifiable evidence about candidates (datasets → walk-forward → OOS → shadow). Runtime executes decisions with hard clamps. Research has zero order authority — the two never mix.

How is leakage (lookahead) prevented? Purged + embargoed walk-forward, strictly causal features (confirmation bars, completed HTF buckets), REPLACE+ALIGN history handling, replay bit-exactness tests, and recorded effective purge/embargo per run (BUG-183). See Walk-Forward.

How are models identified? Artifact-first manifests: dataset ID, feature-schema hash, scaler identity, git commit — validated by the 10-gate load gate at every attach. A model without provenance cannot attach.

How does replay differ from backtesting? Backtest: score a strategy on history. Replay: prove the same code path as live behaves identically on history (bit-exact vs dataset). See Replay.

How is a feature contract enforced? Schema registry + SHA-256 hash over canonical feature JSON + inference validator (dimension, bounds, finite, hash, scaler-dim match). Violations are loud rejections, never silent padding.

What is certified? See the Capability Matrix — each row names its evidence. Certified ≈ formal forensic acceptance with reproducible artifacts (e.g. release verification, provider-gate live smoke, OOS gate behavior).

Is it profitable? No claim is made — that is the point. Published evidence includes negative results (70D OOS rejection, counterfactual stratification). Judge from the evidence, not from promises.

Why is the bug ledger public? Because agents/bugs.md (root causes, evidence, regression guards) is the engineering memory. Hiding it would destroy the property that makes the platform trustworthy.