Documentation
A practical guide to using Astral's terminal, strategy workflows, dashboards, alerts, and sharing tools. This page is written from the actual app behavior so you can map it directly to what you see on screen.
Astral is an AI-assisted trading workstation built around a chat-driven terminal. You use natural language to build and refine strategies, inspect charts, run backtests, save strategies, deploy them for alerts, and manage everything from a dashboard and shared library.
Important Status Notes
The terminal is a three-column workstation: left chat sidebar, central chart/workspace, and a slim right rail with app actions plus an optional watchlist drawer.
Alt + N.Ctrl/Cmd + C.The fastest way to get good results is to be explicit: tell Astral the asset(s), timeframe, entry condition, exit condition, and risk rules. You can also ask it to revise an existing strategy rather than starting over.
SPY on 15m. Enter when [condition]. Exit when [condition]. Add a stop loss and a take profit. Show me the backtest."1h," "add a volume filter," or "tighten stop loss."Astral can generate code and backtest outputs into the main panel. Use the code view to sanity-check strategy logic and the backtest view to decide whether a strategy is worth saving or deploying.
Saved strategies are surfaced in the strategies flows (modal/dashboard widgets). You can reopen strategy details, inspect metrics, and run another backtest from detail views.
Deployment is how you operationalize a strategy. In current app behavior, deployment always requires a notification profile, and alert-driven monitoring is the default safe path for most users.
Deployment Modes in the UI
Astral's charting is built on TradingView Lightweight Charts (attribution requirement applies). The chart workspace supports multiple chart types, broad interval coverage, drawing tools, indicators, and hotkeys for fast layout changes.
| Group | Supported Intervals |
|---|---|
| Common | 1m5m15m30m1h1D |
| Minutes | 1m5m15m30m |
| Hours | 1h |
| Days | 1D |
I.Alt + T), horizontal line (Alt + H), and rectangle (Alt + B) via hotkeys.Astral has two alert systems users commonly confuse: manual chart alerts (created from the terminal alerts modal) and strategy deployment notifications (from deployed strategies).
Notification profiles can include email, SMS, app push, and web push channel settings. The edit strategy flow also supports inline profile creation, including phone verification for SMS-enabled profiles.
Strategy management appears in multiple places: the Strategies modal (hotkey Alt + S), dashboard widgets, and detail popups/modals. Use these views to compare performance, redeploy, edit notification routing, and inspect details.
Practical Recommendation
The dashboard is a configurable monitoring surface with widgets. It is designed for daily review and operational work: strategy status, alerts, connected brokers, positions, and quick chart checks.
Shift + T in dashboard chart workflows).Explore is the discovery and reuse layer for Astral. It has three tabs: strategies, indicators, and saved (your saved library).
Shared strategy and indicator routes redirect into the terminal using query parameters. The terminal then handles the import/apply flow and transitions you into a normal session route.
Astral includes broker connection and account views (SnapTrade-based UI flows). This supports monitoring and account-level visibility, and can be used alongside strategy and alert workflows.
Execution Caveat
If checkout fails
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/Cmd + C | Collapse / expand the left chat sidebar |
| Alt + N | Start a new chat session |
| Alt + W | Toggle watchlist panel |
| Alt + S | Open Strategies modal (icon is hidden on the rail) |
| Alt + D | Open Dashboard |
| Alt + E | Open Explore |
| I | Open indicators modal |
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| R | Reset chart view |
| Shift + R | Replace active chart symbol |
| Shift + T | Add a new chart |
| Shift + X | Remove active chart (won't remove last chart) |
| Alt + T | Activate trend line drawing tool |
| Alt + H | Activate horizontal line drawing tool |
| Alt + B | Activate rectangle drawing tool |
| H | Hide all drawings |
| Alt + I | Remove indicators |
| Ctrl/Cmd + Z | Undo |
| Ctrl/Cmd + Y | Redo |