
**AlphaPilot AI — Autonomous Options Trading Agent** AlphaPilot AI is an autonomous AI-powered options trading platform developed for the Alpaca Options Alpha Agents hackathon. The project combines quantitative market analysis, intelligent decision-making, options contract selection, risk management, automated execution, and portfolio monitoring into one end-to-end trading system. The backend is developed using Python and FastAPI and integrates with Alpaca's Trading API for market data, account information, positions, options contracts, and paper-trade execution. The trading agent analyzes instruments such as SPY and QQQ using technical indicators including EMA20, EMA50, RSI, MACD, ATR, and short-term momentum. These signals are combined into a confidence-based scoring system that determines whether market conditions support a CALL, PUT, or HOLD decision. When a high-confidence opportunity is detected, the options-selection module searches for an appropriate contract based on the underlying asset, option type, strike proximity, expiration, and available market conditions. Before placing an order, the risk-management engine checks account exposure, maximum risk per trade, existing positions, and portfolio limits. Only trades that satisfy predefined safety rules are allowed to proceed. The project also incorporates Alpaca MCP to support agentic interaction with Alpaca's trading ecosystem. A React-based frontend provides a real-time dashboard showing account equity, buying power, market indicators, AI confidence scores, selected options, open positions, P&L, trade history, and decision explanations. AlphaPilot AI focuses on creating an explainable and testable autonomous trading workflow rather than a simple order-placement bot. The complete system demonstrates how an AI trading agent can observe market conditions, identify opportunities, select options, evaluate risk, execute paper trades, monitor positions, and manage the trading lifecycle automatically.
4 Sep 2026