Know what the market is about
before you trade.

BOUT is a free, open-source terminal research desk for retail futures traders — macro calendar, news, order-flow concepts, ICT concepts, strategy confluence, and an AI-assisted trade journal. One CLI, one daily briefing.

View on GitHub $ npm install
bout — zsh
$ bout brief today ━━ BOUT DAILY BRIEFING ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Session: NY AM kill zone (08:30–11:00 ET) [real: clock-based] Macro: 2 high-impact events today [sample data] Order flow: delta positive, absorption low [mock data] Risk level: ELEVATED — news-driven session Research and market context only. Not financial advice.

It tells you what's real — and what isn't

Most retail trading tools quietly dress up their data. BOUT does the opposite: every module labels its own output as real or mock, every time it runs. That's the whole point of the project.

REAL — computed from the actual clock

  • Session timing (premarket / lunch / power hour)
  • ICT kill-zone detection (US Eastern Time)
  • Trade journal + R:R math on your logged trades
  • AI review of your journal (with your own API key)

MOCK — labeled placeholders, swappable later

  • Order flow (delta, absorption, sweeps)
  • Volume analysis & heat maps
  • ICT chart structure (FVG, BOS, MSS)
  • Calendar & news (static sample files)

One CLI, a full research desk

BOUT itself is free and open source. bout brief and bout confluence require your own AI provider to run — there is no offline/mock AI mode. Bring a Claude or OpenAI API key (your own usage cost, billed per-token by that provider), or run Ollama locally for free. bout journal add is the exception — its R:R math and rule checks work with no provider at all; only the bonus AI coaching note needs one.

$ bout brief today

Daily briefing: macro events, news impact, risk level, watchlist, confluence snapshot.

$ bout confluence today

The synthesis report — every module cross-referenced against a 9-strategy knowledge base.

$ bout analyze ict

FVG, liquidity sweeps, BOS/MSS, premium/discount, kill zones — educational, clearly labeled.

$ bout journal add

Log trades to SQLite + markdown and get an AI-assisted review of each one.

$ bout strategy list

9 strategy templates with confirmation signs, invalidation signs, and avoid-conditions.

$ bout report daily

End-of-day summary: trades, win/loss, average R:R — your discipline, measured.

What BOUT is not

Said plainly, because this space is full of tools that won't say it:

  • Not a live trading bot — no broker connection, no order execution, anywhere
  • Not a signal-selling product — nothing says "buy now"
  • Not financial advice — research and market context only
  • Not a guaranteed profit system — no such thing exists

Feedback

BOUT is early and built in the open — real feedback shapes what gets built next. Two ways to reach us:

GITHUB ISSUES — bugs & feature requests

  • Open an issue for anything broken or missing
  • Public, searchable, and tracked — best for anything technical

EMAIL — everything else

Install

Requires Node.js 22.5+ (uses the built-in node:sqlite — no native deps to compile). Free, MIT-licensed.

$ git clone https://github.com/Starrybums/bout.git $ cd bout && npm install && npm run build $ npm link # optional: makes `bout` available globally $ bout init $ cp .env.example .env # then add ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, or point OLLAMA_BASE_URL at a local server $ bout model set claude # or openai, or ollama $ bout brief today

No provider configured yet? bout brief and bout confluence will tell you so and exit cleanly rather than faking a result — bout journal add, bout watch add, and bout strategy list all work immediately with no setup.