Signal Trade App API Keys Guide
Category: App Pages | Last updated: 2026-06-15 | Reading time: 5 min read
What Is the API Keys Page?
The API Keys page lets you create and revoke API keys for programmatic access. Use keys to place orders from your own bots, build custom dashboards, or connect external risk systems. (TradingView alerts use webhook tokens from the Signals page instead.)
How to Create an API Key
- Go to API Keys.
- Click + New Key.
- Enter a Key Name, for example: "MNQ Trading Bot".
- Select the scopes you need: read (view accounts and positions) and/or trade (place orders, flatten, strategies).
- Click Create Key and copy the key immediately with Copy Key. It is shown only once.
API Key Scopes
| Scope | What It Allows |
|---|---|
| read | Read accounts, positions, orders, risk readings, strategies, and user info. |
| trade | Place orders, attach TP/SL protection, flatten accounts, create webhooks, and create strategies. |
Using Your Key
Include the key in the X-API-Key header of every request:
X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY
API documentation is available at /api-docs.
Idempotent Orders
When placing orders via the API, include a unique Idempotency-Key header to avoid duplicate trades if a request retries:
POST /api/v1/accounts/ID/orders X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY Idempotency-Key: order-attempt-001 Content-Type: application/json
The same key returns the cached response for 24 hours without placing a second order.
Live Account Stream
Instead of polling positions and orders, open one Server-Sent Events stream. It starts with a snapshot of your accounts, open positions and working orders, then sends order, fill, position, balance, risk (trailing drawdown, liquidation level and profit to pass), risk_settings (limits changed) and lock events as they happen. Position and balance updates arrive at most once per second with the latest value; orders and fills arrive immediately. Add ?accountId=ID to follow one account. If the connection drops, reconnect and the new snapshot brings you up to date.
GET /api/v1/stream X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY Accept: text/event-stream
From October 17, 2026, each API key can read the same endpoint at most 12 times a minute. Bots that poll faster should move to the stream.
Real-Time Connection Health
Use the SSE stream to monitor your broker connection status in real time. The stream emits connect, disconnect, reconnect, auth-expired, and fatal-error events for every connection owned by your API key.
GET /api/v1/connection-health/stream X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY Accept: text/event-stream
Example event stream:
data: {"type":"snapshot","connectionId":"conn_abc","status":"CONNECTED","ts":1719861123456} data: {"type":"status","connectionId":"conn_abc","status":"RECONNECTING","ts":1719861200000} data: {"type":"status","connectionId":"conn_abc","status":"CONNECTED","ts":1719861230000} data: {"type":"heartbeat","ts":1719861240000}
This is useful for dashboards or alerting systems that need to know immediately when a broker connection drops, without polling the API.
Developing with a Demo Account
The safest way to test trade-scoped integrations is with a Tradovate demo account. Demo connections use the same order path as live accounts, so your code is production-ready before any real money is at risk.
- Go to Connections and add a Tradovate connection with the Demo / Sim environment.
- Create an API key with the trade scope.
- Place small test orders through the demo account using the examples in API Docs.
- Once verified, switch to your prop-firm account connection.
For read-only dashboards, a read-scope key is enough and carries no trading risk.
Security Best Practices
- Never commit API keys to public repositories.
- Use a separate key for each integration.
- Revoke keys immediately if you suspect they are exposed.
- Use read-only scopes for dashboards that do not need to trade.
Read next: Signals guide.
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