SYSTEM 03 · MARKETS
Headless R&D

No dashboard. No one has to watch it.

Parallax is a headless trading stack built on a simple constraint: nothing executes unless the signal layer and the risk layer independently agree. There's no interface because there's nothing for a person to approve in real time. The checks live inside the loop, not in a browser tab someone forgot to close.

WHY HEADLESS

A dashboard is a place for latency to hide.

Every extra layer between a market signal and an executed order is a place for delay, human hesitation, or a misread chart to creep in. Parallax has no web server and no port assigned to it, on purpose. The entire system is three cooperating processes with one job each, running exactly as fast as the market requires.

Signal reads the market Risk gatekeeper Exec acts execution only fires if risk clears the signal, never on signal alone
THE LOOP, IN ORDER

Three processes. One job each. Strict order.

1. Signal loop

Continuously reads market data and produces a candidate action, nothing more. It never talks to an exchange directly.

2. Risk coordinator

Evaluates the candidate against position limits, exposure, and live constraints. It can only say no, or say yes with conditions; it cannot originate a trade.

3. Order executor

The only process allowed to touch an exchange, and only once risk has cleared the signal. It has no independent judgment to overrule.

4. Record

Every decision, including every rejection, is logged with the inputs that produced it, so a bad quarter can be diagnosed instead of guessed at.

Interested in how the risk coordinator is specified before a single line of signal logic gets written?