Day 76 of 90 | Monday, January 12, 2026

Answer Block

Answer Block: 14 days remaining in our journey to build a profitable AI trading system.

14 days remaining in our journey to build a profitable AI trading system.

Another day in the 90-day journey to build a profitable AI trading system. Here’s what we learned today.

Important Discoveries

Not emergencies, but insights that will shape how we trade going forward.

Stale Order Threshold Must Be 4 Hours, Not 24

System had $5K in paper account but hadn’t traded in 6 days. Root cause: unfilled orders sitting for 24 hours consumed all buying power, blocking new trades.

Comprehensive Investment Strategy Review - January 12, 2026

CEO requested comprehensive audit of all trading systems. CTO conducted thorough investigation with evidence-based answers to 15+ questions.

Quick Wins & Refinements

  • Lesson Learned 133: Registry.py Missing Broke All Trading… - During a system health check, discovered that src/strategies/registry.py was deleted in the NUCLEA…
  • CTO Wrongly Assumed API Keys Were Invalid - January 12, 2026 - CTO (Claude) tested Alpaca API from sandbox environment and received “Access denied”….
  • NEVER Tell CEO to Run CI - Do It Yourself - On Jan 12, 2026, CTO (Claude) reported CI status by observing GitHub Actions results instead of acti…
  • Branch and PR Hygiene Protocol (LL-137) - LL-137: Branch and PR Hygiene Protocol (LL-137)

Date: January 12, 2026 Category: DevOps / Git Workf…

Today’s Numbers

What Count
Lessons Learned 6
Critical Issues 0
High Priority 2
Improvements 4

The Journey So Far

We’re building an autonomous AI trading system that learns from every mistake. This isn’t about getting rich quick - it’s about building a system that can consistently generate income through disciplined options trading.

Our approach:

  • Paper trade for 90 days to validate the strategy
  • Document every lesson, every failure, every win
  • Use AI (Claude) as CTO to automate and improve
  • Follow Phil Town’s Rule #1: Don’t lose money

Want to follow along? Check out the full project on GitHub.

Day 76/90 complete. 14 to go.

*Related: Complete Guide to AI Iron Condor Trading Our North Star Strategy*