Warrior_EA/docs/API_KEYS.txt

WARRIOR EA - API KEYS (BACKUP COPY)
===================================

Kept here so the keys are never lost with a wiped data folder. Both are FREE,
personal, and rate-limited per key.

FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
----------------------------------------
key:      9640c07ff6574c1c23a17393b735fd36
host:     https://api.stlouisfed.org
register: https://fredaccount.stlouisfed.org/apikeys
feeds:    VIXCLS (vix, vix_chg5), DTWEXBGS (usd_chg5)
limit:    120 requests/minute (the EA uses ~2 per hour)

EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
--------------------------------------------
key:      oeSZu7EaZxG5Icjm6q78yUIXaH2EKGhIwVsdTj76
host:     https://api.eia.gov
register: https://www.eia.gov/opendata/register.php
feeds:    Weekly Petroleum Status Report - crude stocks ex-SPR (WCESTUS1),
          field production (WCRFPUS2), refinery utilization (WPULEUS3)
limit:    5,000 rows/request (the EA uses 1 request/week)

CFTC (Commitments of Traders)
-----------------------------
key:      NONE REQUIRED - the Socrata endpoint is open
host:     https://publicreporting.cftc.gov
dataset:  gpe5-46if (Traders in Financial Futures, futures only)

CBOE (option chains for the GEX recorder)
------------------------------------------
key:      NONE REQUIRED - open CDN, and it does not gate on User-Agent
host:     https://cdn.cboe.com
path:     /api/global/delayed_quotes/options/{TICKER}.json  (_SPX, GLD, USO, ...)
feeds:    the daily gex_{SYMBOL}.csv recorder (not a model feature yet)

FLASHALPHA (options analytics - RESEARCH ONLY, NOT USED BY THE EA)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
key:      s0AmHthSZi3nenuwvARTz3aKd7DUAnMpOee617jh
auth:     HTTP HEADER, not a query parameter:   X-Api-Key: <key>
hosts:    https://lab.flashalpha.com          (live)
          https://historical.flashalpha.com   (point-in-time replay, 2018-04+)
register: https://flashalpha.com
plan:     FREE - 5 requests per DAY, 15-minute delayed data

    !! THE FREE QUOTA IS 5 REQUESTS A DAY. DO NOT SPEND THEM CASUALLY. !!

    Registered 2026-08-16. NO CALLS HAVE BEEN MADE YET - the whole quota is
    reserved for one specific question (below). This key is deliberately NOT
    an EA input: the EA must never depend on a paid, rate-limited vendor in
    its live path. It is for research-side backfill only.

    Example call shape:
        curl -H "X-Api-Key: <key>" \
          "https://lab.flashalpha.com/v1/exposure/gex/AAPL?expiration=2026-06-19"

    PRICING CHECKED 2026-08-16 - THE BACKFILL PLAN IS DEAD:
        Free   $0      5 req/day      15 min delay
        Basic  $79/mo  250 req/day    15 sec
        Growth $299/mo 2,500 req/day  15 sec
        Alpha  $1,499/mo unlimited    ~1 sec
    HISTORICAL API ACCESS IS ALPHA-TIER ONLY ($1,499/month). Basic and Growth
    are LIVE data only. Since the only thing we wanted from this vendor was
    the ARCHIVE, no affordable tier helps: Basic would cost $79/month to make
    a once-a-day snapshot 15 seconds fresh instead of 15 minutes, which is
    worth exactly nothing for a daily EOD recording. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE.
    Cancellation is anytime, if that ever changes.

    TESTED 2026-08-16 - 3 of 5 daily requests spent. FINDINGS (all 403s and
    the one 200 were informative, so nothing was wasted):

    1. GET /v1/exposure/gex/SPY
       -> 403 tier_restricted: "ETF data (e.g. SPY, QQQ, IWM) requires the
          Basic plan or higher." Free tier is SINGLE STOCKS ONLY.
    2. GET /v1/exposure/gex/AAPL   (no expiration filter)
       -> 403 tier_restricted: "Full-chain GEX (all expirations) requires
          the Growth plan or higher." Free AND Basic must query ONE
          EXPIRATION PER REQUEST.
    3. GET /v1/exposure/gex/AAPL?expiration=2026-09-18
       -> 200. Schema: symbol, underlying_price, as_of, gamma_flip, net_gex,
          net_gex_label, strikes[] with per-strike call_gex/put_gex/net_gex/
          call_oi/put_oi/volumes/oi_change.
          BUT THE PAYLOAD WAS NEARLY EMPTY: only 13 of 93 strikes carried
          any open interest, total call OI 4,296 against our 373,253 from
          CBOE for the same expiry, and total put OI was ZERO. Every
          near-the-money strike (290-320) showed call_oi 0 where CBOE shows
          9,000-35,000 contracts.
          So NO VALIDATION WAS POSSIBLE - not because our math disagreed,
          but because there was nothing to compare against. Cannot tell from
          outside whether that is free-tier degradation or a consequence of
          their flow-signed methodology (they sign strikes from classified
          tape, so strikes with no classified trades may simply be absent).

    CONCLUSION: the free CBOE CDN is STRICTLY BETTER than FlashAlpha Basic
    for this project - complete chains, every expiry, every strike, gamma and
    open interest populated, unlimited requests, $0. Basic ($79/mo) would buy
    ETF access that we already have for free, still one expiry per request,
    and still no history. Nothing here is worth paying for at any tier below
    Alpha ($1,499/mo), and Alpha is not worth it either (see DESIGN.md).

WHERE THESE KEYS ARE USED
-------------------------
1. EA inputs (the live source of truth):
       FredApiKey, EiaApiKey     - Variables\Inputs.mqh, defaults = the keys above
   They travel WITH the EA, so wiping Common\Files\Warrior_EA cannot break the
   downloads. This is deliberate: on 2026-08-16 a folder wipe took the old
   keys.txt with it and the FRED leg silently stopped, leaving models training
   with zero alt-data features.

2. Fallback file (only read when an input is left BLANK):
       %APPDATA%\MetaQuotes\Terminal\Common\Files\Warrior_EA\AltData\keys.txt
   Format, one per line:
       fred=9640c07ff6574c1c23a17393b735fd36
       eia=oeSZu7EaZxG5Icjm6q78yUIXaH2EKGhIwVsdTj76

3. Research side (Python, never reads the EA inputs):
       ..\Market Data\altdata\keys.json   (outside the repo, gitignored)
       {"fred": "...", "eia": "...", "flashalpha": "..."}
   Read via research/altdata/common.py api_key(name), which checks the
   environment variable ALTDATA_<NAME>_KEY first.

IF YOU EVER SELL OR SHARE THIS EA
---------------------------------
Blank the FredApiKey / EiaApiKey input defaults before building the
distributable, and delete this file from the shipped copy. A shared key is
rate-limited against YOUR account and can be revoked by the provider.

To rotate a key: register a new one at the URL above, update the input default
in Variables\Inputs.mqh, this file, and Market Data\altdata\keys.json.