Backtest Artifacts, Manifests, and Launch Contracts
CuteMarkets Team
Research
Backtest Artifacts, Manifests, and Launch Contracts
Backtest artifacts are the API between research and operations: they identify the experiment, preserve evidence, and freeze the paper-trading candidate.
Backtest Artifacts, Manifests, and Launch Contracts
Abstract
A trading research result is only useful if it can be recreated. That requires artifacts: profile manifests, pack manifests, selected trades, daily PnL, summaries, diagnostics, and launch contracts for paper validation.
Developers should think of these files as the API between research and operations.
Manifests Name The Experiment
A manifest records what was tested: strategy family, parameters, symbols, date range, geometry, pricing mode, and output expectations. Without a manifest, a result becomes dependent on memory and shell history.
Manifests are also useful for review. They make it possible to compare two research runs without reading every code path.
Launch Contracts Freeze The Candidate
A launch contract is the paper-trading version of the research object. It should contain the selected profile, risk settings, symbol set, DTE rules, and execution controls needed by the bot.
If the launch contract cannot express the backtest, the strategy is not ready for paper. The gap should be fixed before orders are enabled.
Artifacts Make No-Go Useful
No-go branches should still keep summaries and diagnostics. The next researcher needs to know whether the branch failed because of poor PnL, high PBO, low DSR, data coverage, execution rejects, or portfolio overlap.
Takeaway
Artifacts are not administrative overhead. They are how a developer turns a backtest into a repeatable research process and eventually into a paper-trading candidate.
FAQ
Related questions
What belongs in a launch contract?
A launch contract should freeze the selected profile, symbols, risk settings, DTE rules, execution controls, and any required data inputs.
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