VOLTA — Volatility Surface Trading Agent

VOLTA (Volatility Surface Trading Agent) is an autonomous options trading system that generates alpha by finding relative mispricing within the options market, rather than predicting stock direction. It detects internal inconsistencies across strikes and expirations on the volatility surface and captures them through defined-risk spreads. VOLTA operates through a fully autonomous **12-step trading cycle**: it scans live Alpaca market data, constructs a real-time volatility surface, and applies three anomaly detectors—**strike/skew analysis, term-structure analysis, and local surface z-scores**—to identify subtle pricing inconsistencies. Detected anomalies are transformed into **vertical, calendar, or diagonal spreads**. Candidates are deterministically scored across six dimensions: anomaly strength, liquidity, relative-value edge, risk/reward, execution quality, and portfolio exposure. An LLM then reasons over the highest-quality candidates and makes a final go/no-go decision. Its core architectural principle is the agent Proposes, Deterministic Code Authorizes.” The agent can reason and select trades but cannot invent contracts, alter risk limits, bypass controls, or submit orders. A deterministic risk engine validates every decision, enforcing position limits, DTE constraints, exposure caps, liquidity requirements, and defined-risk rules. Execution occurs through Alpaca MCP, making MCP a genuine architectural component. Every decision is fully auditable from market observation through execution. VOLTA is intentionally **abstention-first**, trading only when opportunities are high-confidence and risk-validated.