TraderMemosFirst steps
From the setup wizard to your first reviewed trade — a tour of the app for new users.
You've got it running — here's the path from empty instance to a journal that tells you something.
1. The setup wizard
On first visit, TraderMemos detects an empty database and shows a one-time setup:
- Owner account — a login name and password (min 10 characters). This is the admin;
public registration stays closed afterwards unless you enable
TM_ALLOW_REGISTRATION. - Trading account — name (default Main), currency, and starting balance. The balance becomes an Opening balance deposit in your cash ledger.
- Optional import — drop a CSV or a TraderMemos JSON backup to seed the journal, or skip and start empty. You can always import later.
Every new user starts with nine common playbook setups (Pullback, Breakout, Reversal, …) — rename or replace them under Playbook.
2. Get trades in
Three ways, mix freely:
- Import a broker CSV — the fastest way to a populated journal. See Importing trades.
- New Trade (hotkey
ct) — manual entry with execution rows, setup, tags, emotion, screenshots, and notes. With AI features enabled, Scan to fill extracts the fills from a broker screenshot. - Automate it — the tm-sync desktop watcher imports MT4/MT5 statements as they appear, and IBKR accounts can auto-sync on a schedule via a Flex Query (Settings → Accounts → Flex sync).
- Just exploring? Seed ~200 realistic demo trades:
make demo-seed API=http://localhost:3000/api/v1 EMAIL=you@example.com PASSWORD='…'
Fills are grouped into trades automatically (scale-ins and scale-outs included), and duplicates are always skipped — so nothing here can double-count.
3. Find your way around
| Page | Hotkey | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Home | G H | Equity curve, P&L hero, streaks, expectancy, goal pacing |
| Trades | G T | The trade log — filter, sort, drill into fills and journal detail |
| Calendar | G C | Daily P&L heatmap with weekly totals and drill-down |
| Reports | G S | Expectancy, SQN, Kelly %, Monte Carlo, execution quality; setup / hourly / session breakdowns |
| Notes | G N | Freeform notes and daily logs |
| Playbook | G P | Your setups, each linked to the trades that used it |
| Calculator | G R | Position-size / R calculator |
| Import | G I | Import & export |
| Settings | ⌘ , | Accounts, rules & alerts, journal, AI, API tokens, sharing, users |
⌘K opens the command palette from anywhere, and the Tools menu holds the rest — advanced
chart, bar replay, economic calendar, FX and Kelly calculators, and Year Wrapped. Every binding
is remappable in Settings → Shortcuts.
4. Build the review habit
The journal pays off in the loop, not the log:
- Tag every trade with a setup from your playbook (plus mistakes and emotion when relevant) — untagged trades can't teach you anything.
- Check Reports weekly — the setup breakdown shows which patterns actually make money; Playbook ranks them by expectancy and profit factor.
- Set guardrails — Settings → Rules holds risk limits (max risk per trade, max daily loss) that the New Trade compliance check enforces, and an annual goal the Dashboard paces.
- Size consistently — the position-size calculator (
⌘⇧P) works off your account equity and default risk %.
5. Before you rely on it
Two minutes of ops hygiene for real data:
- Production hardening — JWT secret and TLS: Deploy
- Automatic backups: Backup & restore