Onboarding checklist#
The dashboard checklist hides itself once you've cleared every gate. The four gates are:
- Accept the Terms of Service. A banner at the top of the dashboard links to Settings. You can't save an API key without this.
- Add and verify a Binance API key. The Strategies and Live Trades screens are locked until at least one key has passed the verify step. See Connecting Binance.
- Create a strategy. Use Strategies → + New strategy to walk through the 4-step wizard. See Webhooks → Creating a webhook.
- Capture a payload (or paste a sample). The wizard refuses to activate the webhook until at least one captured payload has been mapped to a HookTrader event. See Webhooks → Capture and map.
Once the webhook is active, the next incoming TradingView alert places a real trade.
What unlocks when#
| Action | Unlocks |
|---|---|
| Accept ToS | Adding API keys |
| Verify an API key | Strategies, Live Trades, History screens |
| Activate first webhook | Real trades on entry alerts |
Why the gates exist#
- ToS — risk acknowledgement; required before HookTrader can place orders on your behalf.
- Key verification — HookTrader makes a test call to your Binance account to confirm the credentials and required permissions before letting you bind a strategy to them. Catches bad keys, missing futures permission, and IP-whitelist mismatches up front.
- Mapped capture — HookTrader needs to know how to translate your indicator's alert format into the events it understands. Activating without a mapping would reject every incoming alert.
If you ever get stuck, check Notifications for the latest webhook errors, or open the ? panel on any page for context-specific help.