Where the rules live decides whether they hold
This page is about trust: why Detent's enforcement can't be dodged in the moment, and why running it never means handing anyone your keys, your data, or your edge.
Rules you can route around aren't rules
The whole trick is placement: Detent runs as its own process at the API layer, acting on the account itself — not a panel you can trade around.
Rules in a panel
A front-end rule is a suggestion. Trade around the panel once and every gate it carried — size caps, session windows, cooldowns — is gone the moment you need it.
Rules at the API layer
Detent runs as its own process against your broker's API and sees positions however they were opened. Bypassing a UI doesn't bypass the enforcement — it never lived in the UI.
One loop, four stages
Market data flows in, the engine evaluates, the gate layer decides, and only risk-reducing order actions flow out — no human in the hot path.
Lock-only, by construction
Every action the engine can take reduces risk: it tightens stops, locks profit, closes positions, and locks the account after a rule break. Stops only ever move toward safety — widening is refused at the same layer. In its first confirmed live save, the lock converted a full-R loss into roughly half.
Route your orders through Detent and it can reject a rule-breaking order before it fills. Trade direct and it still catches the position and acts — it just can't un-send what you already sent.
Your keys, your machine, your rules
Detent is software you own and run — not a service you trust with your account. The security model is structural, not a promise.
Your keys, market data, and fills move only between you and your broker. There is no Detent server in the middle — ever.
Nothing passes through us
Detent runs on your machine against your own broker API. Your keys, your market data, and your fills move between you and your broker.
Set at setup, locked in session
You define every threshold before the session starts. Once you're trading, the configuration is locked: no in-the-moment override, no "just this once." Changing your rules is a between-sessions act, on purpose.
A purchase, not a dependency
One-time purchase. Not a managed service, not a signal service, not copy trading — Detent has no opinion on what you should trade and takes no custody of anything. Your audit log stays local and readable.
It has to be running
Detent acts while it's running and connected to your broker. It leans on your broker's own stop — a real order that holds even if Detent or your connection drops — and reconciles your positions when it reconnects. That's the honest limit, and it's why your stop lives at the broker, not just in the app.
Works with the API your broker or prop firm already exposes
Detent connects on your own credentials, through the platform your broker or firm already runs on. Most funded-futures firms run on Rithmic, Tradovate, or ProjectX — if yours exposes API access, Detent connects on your own key.
The platform list is the roadmap — no adapter has shipped yet. And firms differ: confirm your firm's API access and automation terms before you buy. That call is yours.
Same trades. Only the loss floor differs.
Illustrative, synthetic data. Red replays an asymmetric trade distribution raw; green floors each loss at the daily limit you pick. Drag the limit and watch survival change.
Synthetic data, shown for the mechanism only. Your limits are yours to set.
Enforce your rules at the API layer
Works with major futures brokers through their own API — more on the roadmap. Runs on your own credentials, and can only ever reduce risk. One-time purchase; waitlist members get early access and founding-member pricing.