Workflows

A workflow is a helper that runs again and again. On each run, Atlas:

1. Looks. It calls the market tools you picked (quotes, the options chain, gamma, flow, charts, and more).
2. Decides. It reads that data, follows your written rules, and makes a choice.
3. Acts. If the choice is to trade, it places the order with your broker (or sends you the plan, in Draft mode).

What kind of workflow

The Basics step asks what the workflow is for, and that decides how it acts at the end of a run:

• Trade it places the trade card with your broker.
• Send me the order messages you the trade to place yourself.
• Create alerts and Send plays make those things.
• Just analyse is the one with no trade card. It reads the tools you picked, thinks, and writes up what it found. If you want it to do something with that conclusion, you give it Output tools: the tools it calls after it has decided, such as posting a play, setting an alert, messaging you, or acting on one of your own connected servers.

The Output step is for Just analyse workflows only. The others already act through their trade card, their play or the alerts they make, so the step is not offered on them and any output tools they carry are ignored.

To get the most out of an analysis workflow:

• Pick the Input data tools as lookups: the things it must read to decide.
• Write the reasoning so it ends in a decision, never "check with me first". Nobody is there on a scheduled run, and an analysis run is never "no action": the write-up is the result.
• Give it only the Output tools the reasoning actually asks for. Leave Output empty for a plain write-up. No broker is needed unless an Output tool places something.
• Your own connected servers (Connect → Connectors) count as tools too, for Input data and for Output. For an assistant building the workflow for you, the Search-Tools tool lists every tool in one place, Atlas's and your servers', with the exact name to use.

A note on every tool

Each tool you pick, in Input data and in Output, has a box under it: Notes for this tool. What you write there is what the run is told about that tool: what to ask it for, and what to look at in its answer. For an Output tool, when to use it and what to send.

A tool with no note is used on a guess. One or two plain sentences is enough, for example on a gamma tool: *"SPY, today's expiration. Find the strike with the most gamma and say whether the price is above or below it."*

An assistant building a workflow for you is told to write one for every tool. If it leaves any empty, Atlas tells it which ones.

What starts a run

A workflow runs from one of these:

• A schedule, like every weekday at 9:45 in the morning.
• An alert you attach. The workflow runs when the alert goes off.
• Both a schedule and an alert.
• Manual: nothing starts it but you.

You can also press Run now anytime in the dashboard.

Looking before it places

Tick Let me review each run before it places and the workflow still runs in full, then stops before anything reaches your broker. What it decided waits for you on the workflow's card, behind a Preview button. Read it, change it, then Place it or Throw it away.

A journal

A workflow can keep a journal: a note after each trade, each run, or once a day or week, written by Atlas or by you. It reads those notes back on later runs, so what it learned last week is still there this week. An assistant can set all of it up for you, including when it writes, with the same choices the form has.

How it exits a trade

You set the exit: how much to risk (stop loss) and where to take profit. The stop can be a trailing one, which follows the best price since you got in and only ever tightens. Atlas also has a scale out ladder, where you sell in stages at more than one target, each with its own trailing stop. See Exits and the scale out ladder.

Sharing and copies

Workflows can be shared. When you import someone's workflow (or your own template), you get a linked copy:

• The copy follows the author's setup. When the author makes it better, your copy updates too (if you keep auto updates on), or it shows a "behind, apply updates" note.
• Some settings are yours and the author never changes them: the name, the size, the stop loss and take profit, the broker, the alert, who can see it, the daily limit, and your message settings.
• Advanced filters on your copy are yours too: which kinds of trade, the widest bid/ask spread, the lowest rating, the price per contract, the expiry and strike, the hours and days, the most trades a day, the day's move, VIX, earnings and big news days, and more. A trade outside them is skipped for you only, you are told which filter skipped it, and the author and everybody else trade as usual.
• Change something deeper, like the rules, the tools, or the core exit, and your copy becomes your own separate workflow.

Its life

• On workflows run on their schedule or alert. Off ones do not.
• Hitting your daily trade limit pauses it until the next trading day.
• If you pause a shared workflow you made, everyone's copies pause too. Turning it back on brings them back.

Manage them in the Workflows tab.