Security
ThetaPrime is designed for personal use on your own computer. These protections keep your broker credentials safe and guard against accidental live trades.
Dashboard Password
The dashboard is protected by a password — no one can view your positions or trigger trades without it.
Setting it up: The first time you open the app, you'll be asked to create a password. You only do this once; the password is saved securely and remembered across restarts.
Locked out? After 3 wrong attempts, logins from that device are blocked for 5 minutes.
Logging out: Click the ⏻ button in the top-right corner of any page.
Changing your password: Go to the Auth page and find the Change Dashboard Password card. Enter your current password and a new one (minimum 8 characters), then click Change.
Password Recovery
If you forget your dashboard password, there is no "Forgot Password" link. Instead, you reset access by deleting the stored password from Windows — the app then treats it as a fresh install and lets you set a new one.
Steps:
- Click the Windows Start button and search for Credential Manager — open it.
- Click Windows Credentials (the second tab at the top).
- Scroll down and find the entry named
kite_dashboard. - Click on it to expand it, then click Remove.
- Open ThetaPrime. You will see the Set Dashboard Password screen — choose a new password and you're in.
What is NOT affected: Your broker API keys, all trade history, P&L records, strategy settings, and logs are completely untouched. Only the dashboard password is reset.
What Is Protected and What Is Not
Understanding this helps you know where your data is safe and where it isn't.
| What | Where it's stored | Protected? |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard password | Windows Credential Manager | Yes — stored as a one-way fingerprint; even ThetaPrime cannot read it back |
| Broker API keys & tokens | Windows Credential Manager | Yes — copying ThetaPrime's files to another machine won't expose these |
| Trade history & P&L | Database files on your hard drive (run_history.db, performance.db) |
Yes — encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM); see Trade Data Encryption below |
| Trade journal | CSV file (strategies/lib_v1_paper_trade_journal.csv) |
Yes — same AES-256-GCM encryption at rest as trade history above |
What this means in practice:
- The dashboard password is a web UI gate — it stops someone using a browser to access ThetaPrime. It's a separate lock from the encryption below.
- Trade history, P&L, and the trade journal CSV are encrypted after a clean shutdown/restart — copying these files off this machine at that point gets you unreadable bytes, not a SQLite/CSV file you can open in a free tool.
- While ThetaPrime is running, those files are held decrypted (needed to trade) — same "protected while off, not while on" model Windows itself uses for a locked screen vs. a running session. A hard power-off or forced kill skips the shutdown re-encryption step too, leaving the files plaintext until the next clean stop; see the Known Gap note under Trade Data Encryption.
- A downloaded backup zip (Auth page → Backup & Restore) always contains these files encrypted, regardless of whether the app happened to be mid-session when the backup ran.
Trade Data Encryption
run_history.db, performance.db, and the trade journal CSV (lib_v1_paper_trade_journal.csv)
are encrypted after ThetaPrime stops running. The encryption key isn't tied to your dashboard
password — it's held in the same Windows Credential Manager vault as your broker tokens, so
scheduled/automated trading keeps working unattended after a reboot without anyone needing to log
in first.
Known gap: re-encryption runs when ThetaPrime shuts down cleanly (stopping the service, or a normal exit). A hard power-off or a forced kill (Task Manager "End task", a crash) skips that step, leaving these files plaintext on disk until the next clean stop. Nothing is lost or corrupted by this — it's a window where a copy of the files would be readable, not a functional problem — and it self-heals the next time ThetaPrime stops cleanly. This is a known, accepted limitation for a local single-user tool; the BitLocker recommendation below covers this gap at the Windows level.
Recovery code: the first time this feature runs (a fresh install, or your first restart after updating to a version that has it), the Auth page shows a one-time recovery code. Save it somewhere safe — it's the only way to recover your trade data if this computer's Credential Manager is ever lost or corrupted (e.g. a Windows reinstall, or migrating to a new PC). ThetaPrime cannot show it to you again after you dismiss it, but you can generate a fresh one any time from the same Data Encryption card on the Auth page — doing so invalidates the old code.
Recommended: turn on BitLocker (or Device Encryption). ThetaPrime's encryption protects
run_history.db/performance.db only while the app isn't running — while it's actively trading,
those files are held decrypted on disk, the same way any running program needs its data unlocked to
use it. That gap is closed at the Windows level, not the app level: turning on BitLocker
(Windows 10/11 Pro) or Device Encryption (the built-in equivalent on Home editions with
supported hardware — check Settings → Privacy & Security → Device encryption) encrypts your
entire hard drive. If the machine is off, locked, or the drive is removed and read on another
computer, everything on it — including a plaintext run_history.db mid-session — is unreadable
without your Windows login. This is on top of ThetaPrime's own encryption, not instead of it: it
covers "computer off or stolen," ThetaPrime's covers "a copy of just these files." Neither one, nor
any other app, can protect your data from someone who is already logged into this Windows account
while ThetaPrime is running — at that point the app needs the same access to your files that they'd
have.
Your Credentials Are Stored Securely
Your broker API keys and access tokens are saved in your operating system's secure credential store (the same place Windows stores your saved passwords). They are never written to a plain text file unless the secure store is unavailable, in which case a warning banner appears on the Auth page.
Expired Login Prevents Live Trading
If your daily broker login has expired, ThetaPrime will refuse to run any live (real-money) strategy. You'll see a clear error message asking you to re-authenticate first. Paper trading and backtests are not affected — they run regardless.
No Double Entry
If a strategy already has an open trade, ThetaPrime will not let it place another entry. This prevents accidental duplicate positions if the same strategy is triggered more than once.
Maximum Lots Limit
There is a hard cap on the number of lots any strategy can trade. Even if a strategy is misconfigured with a higher number, it will be automatically reduced to the cap before the order is placed, and a warning will appear in the Events log.
To view or change the limit, go to the Auth page and find the Safety Settings card. Enter a new number and click Save. The change takes effect on the next strategy run — no restart needed.
Switching a Strategy to Real Mode
Switching a strategy from Paper to Real is a two-step process so it can never happen by accident:
- Click the Real option in a strategy's mode menu. A confirmation dialog appears showing that strategy's P&L for today.
- Confirm the dialog to actually switch the mode.
Arming: Even after a strategy is set to Real, it still needs to be armed before it will place live orders — a strategy card shows an amber 🔒 Real badge with an Arm button. Click Arm to turn the badge red (🔓 Armed) and enable live orders.
The armed state is saved and survives a restart — an armed Real strategy stays armed after ThetaPrime restarts, so it resumes placing live orders without you needing to arm it again. If a strategy is switched to Real but never armed, it keeps running as paper (and you'll get one notification per day telling you so) until you arm it.
Daily Loss Limit
You can set a hard stop-loss for the whole day across all your real-money strategies combined.
Setting it up: Go to the Auth page, find the Safety Settings card, and enter a threshold in points and/or rupees (e.g. -200 pts or -10000 ₹). Leave a field blank to disable that check. You can set one or both — whichever is hit first triggers the stop.
What happens when it's hit: As soon as your combined real-mode P&L for the day falls to or below the threshold:
- Every strategy running in Real mode is disabled and disarmed.
- You'll get a notification.
- A banner appears on the dashboard, and the day's P&L chip next to Strategies turns red.
- Real mode is blocked for the rest of the day — you cannot switch a strategy to Real or arm one again until the next calendar day, even across a restart.
Paper trading is never affected — it keeps running normally.
Orphan Position Detection
If a crash, manual square-off at the broker, or a missed exit ever leaves your broker holdings and ThetaPrime's records out of sync, ThetaPrime checks for it automatically — at startup, and then periodically in the background for as long as the server runs.
How it works: Every time the server starts, and every 5 minutes after that (while any strategy has an open trade recorded), ThetaPrime compares its real-mode trade state files against the actual open positions reported by your broker — Kite, Breeze, or Dhan. Paper-mode trades are never sent to the broker, so they're excluded from the comparison entirely — an active paper strategy is expected, not a mismatch.
What it flags:
- Broker-only — the broker shows an open position that no real-mode strategy's state file accounts for.
- State file active, broker empty — a real-mode strategy's state file says a trade is open, but the broker shows nothing (or the wrong side).
Where you see it: A small Reconcile badge sits next to the Strategies heading on the dashboard — gray "not checked", green "clean", or red "N mismatch". On a mismatch, the affected symbols appear directly beneath the badge, split into broker-only vs state-only. Click the badge any time to force an immediate check. It also refreshes automatically every minute, so it reflects the periodic background check even if you never click it.
What happens when a mismatch is found: The badge turns red and you get a notification. Nothing is closed automatically — ThetaPrime only surfaces the mismatch; you decide what to do via your broker's own terminal. Click the badge again once you've squared things up — it turns green if everything now matches.
State file active, broker empty — reconciling ThetaPrime's own records: If you closed a position directly at the broker (e.g. a missed automated exit), the broker side is already correct, but ThetaPrime's trade state still shows it open. Open that strategy's Trade Status modal (dashboard → Details) and click Mark Exited (Manual). It shows one row per open leg with an inline exit-price field — no more one-at-a-time prompts — and a Validate vs Broker button that checks each symbol is still tradable and flags a price that's far from the live LTP before you confirm. Recording the exit never places an order, so it's safe to use after the fact. This is different from Sq Off, which places a real closing order and should only be used when the position is still genuinely open at the broker.
Only some legs closed at the broker (e.g. a diagonal's short side): You don't have to close everything at once. Leave the price field blank for any leg that's still genuinely open — only the legs you fill in get marked exited, the rest are left untouched. For example, if you closed just the short SC/SP legs of a diagonal by hand and the long LC/LP legs are still live at the broker:
- Open Trade Status → Mark Exited (Manual).
- Fill in SC and SP with the prices you actually got at the broker (from your order book, not the app's live LTP column).
- Leave LC and LP blank.
- Optionally click Validate vs Broker to sanity-check the SC/SP symbols and prices before confirming.
- Click Confirm Mark Exited. The confirmation dialog lists only the legs you priced, and notes that the rest stay open.
The trade moves to SHORT_CLOSED instead of CLOSED — exactly the state it would be in if the engine's own short-leg exit had fired — and ThetaPrime keeps monitoring LC/LP normally (EOD handling, exits, etc.) from the next scheduled run. Nothing needs editing by hand.
Broker-only — a missed entry you placed by hand: If automation failed to fire an entry and you placed the legs directly at the broker instead, ThetaPrime's state file has no record of it and will flag it as broker-only. Open the strategy's Trade Status modal and click Manual Entry. Fill in each leg you actually placed (symbol, BUY/SELL, fill price) — use + Add leg for anything beyond the four default rows — plus the expiry and lot details, then optionally hit Validate vs Broker to confirm each symbol and price before saving. This only backfills the state file, it never places an order, so it's safe once the position is already real at the broker. Once saved, the position shows as ACTIVE and is monitored (exits, adjustments, EOD handling) exactly like a normal automated entry from the next scheduled run onward.
Fixing a mistake after the fact: If a manual entry/exit (or an automated one) was recorded with a wrong price, symbol, or strike, click Edit Trade State in the same modal. It lists every leg — open and closed — with all fields editable, a Validate vs Broker check, and a confirmation dialog that spells out exactly what's changing before it saves. It only corrects bookkeeping (it can't open or close a leg — use Manual Entry / Mark Exited for that), and every save is appended to the state file's edit_log so a correction is always traceable.
Turning it off: The periodic background check is a Safety Settings toggle on the Auth page ("Automatic orphan-position reconciliation"), on by default. Turning it off stops the every-5-minutes background check and the startup check; the dashboard badge still works on demand regardless.
This check requires a fresh broker login; it's skipped (not flagged as an error) if your token has expired.