Gauss World Trader: An Open-Source Project on Alpaca

Two weeks ago I tried Vibe Coding with Claude Code and quickly put together a trading framework. Claude Code is impressive, but the bigger surprise was discovering Alpaca — it is both powerful and easy to use (I had previously glanced at the IB and Futu APIs and gave up right away).

What makes Alpaca especially attractive:

• Paper Trade account and API are available immediately after signup (currently supports most European countries and the US)
• Easy live account opening with a simple KYC flow
• Commission-free trading (exchange fees still apply)
• Supports stocks, options, and crypto
• Supports fractional shares and short selling
• Free data is generally sufficient (15-minute delay, which is fine for low-frequency trading)
• Clear, beginner-friendly API documentation

I tinkered on and off for a few days. Claude Code was dazzling at first, but as implementation details piled up, productivity started to drop. I paused it because of other work, so strategies are still at the demo stage and I have not done backtesting yet. If you want to try it, the process is simple: register an account → fund it (for live trading; any amount works since fractional shares are supported) → deploy to a server, and it can run 24/7 (or just run locally and stop it when you like).

The project is still quite minimal, but it already supports both CLI and Dashboard startup modes (mainly inspired by recent AI Agent Trading projects). Next on the roadmap:

• Look for interesting trading strategies (e.g., take inspiration from Microsoft Qlib)
• Add a Trading AI Agent feature (even with DeepSeek, token costs are not cheap)
• Build options arbitrage and portfolio trading features
• Hook backtesting into an existing mature platform (e.g., vn.py), since large amounts of historical data are needed

Project link: GitHub - Magica-Chen/GaussWorldTrader

If you have quant experience, your guidance would be greatly appreciated. And if you are interested, feel free to join and build together — it is rare to have peers to exchange ideas with in quant trading.

Slack: https://join.slack.com/t/gaussianprocessmodels/shared_invite/zt-5acinu03-qvIOXiqSX0tvQmwPL2D7Nw

Disclaimer: This post is for technical discussion only and does not constitute investment advice. Quantitative trading involves risk; invest with caution.