Journal and post-trade review

The journal is the desk's memory; the review is how the desk learns. Both come from the exchange record first and chat second, and both keep process and outcome apart.

1. Journal

/workspace/trading-desk/journal/YYYY-MM-DD.md, one file per active day, appended in time order. Entry types:

14:02 UTC  HG-20260816-01 opened   ETH-PERP long idea (user); status evidence
14:12 UTC  HG-20260816-01 risk     PASS 0.51 ETH, stop 2,900, 0.5% risk (risk-limits v3)
14:29 UTC  HG-20260816-01 approval "approve HG-20260816-01" (user)
14:31 UTC  HG-20260816-01 sent     buy 0.51 @ 3,000 Gtc + sl 2,900 (normalTpsl); cloid 0x9f3e...; oid 1839201122, sl waitingForFill
16:05 UTC  HG-20260816-01 fill     0.51 @ 3,000.0 maker, fee $0.31
09:12 UTC  HG-20260816-01 closed   tp 3,089.6, fee $1.52; position flat; sl 2,900 cancelled 09:13
10:00 UTC  limits                  risk-limits v3 -> v4: max positions 3 -> 4 (user, reason: adding HYPE)
11:40 UTC  incident INC-20260817-01 send timeout on HG-20260817-02, reconciled not-on-exchange, re-approved and sent 11:47
18:00 UTC  note                    maker entries at 10 bps depth filled within 2h on both attempts this week

Rules: append only; corrections are new lines with correction:; every line has a UTC time and an id where one exists; no opinions in the journal (those go in reviews).

2. Trade review

Trigger: a proposal reaches closed, or the user asks. Inputs, always listed with timestamps:

• the proposal file (ticket, PASS, approval, execution, reconciliation)
• userFills / userFillsByTime for the window: price, size, fee, side, crossed
• historicalOrders and orderStatus by cloid: what rested when, what cancelled
• userFunding for the holding window
• optionally the Market Analyst's depth read at send time for expected slippage

Compute:

Measure	How
Entry slippage	(fill avg - ticket price) / ticket price in bps, signed against the trade
Exit slippage	same for the exit versus its ticket or trigger price
Fees	sum of fill fees in USD and as bps of notional; note maker vs taker
Funding	sum of funding payments over the window, USD
Net result	realised PnL after fees and funding, in USD and in R (R from the ticket)
Protection	was a reduce-only stop resting on the exchange for the entire life of the position? gaps in minutes
Lifecycle	each stage present, in order, with timestamps; approval by id; single send; reconciled
Holding time	fill to flat

Grade:

• Process: clean / minor break / major break, with the specific stage named. A major break is any send without PASS or approval by id, any missing protection, any resend on unknown result, or any limit breached.
• Outcome: result in R and USD, stated without adjectives.

Then one thing: a leak, a control that worked, or a break, chosen because it is repeatable. Not a list.

Write the review under ## review in the proposal file and send the block (format in agents/trade-reviewer.md) by DM to the Desk Lead and the user. Set status: closed.

3. Weekly desk review

From the journal, proposals and the exchange record for the week:

• proposals opened / rejected / voided / executed / closed
• trades closed: count, hit rate, average win and loss in R, expectancy in R (mean of results), largest loss, largest drawdown in equity terms from portfolio or start/end equity
• costs: fees and funding in USD and as a share of gross PnL
• process: number of breaks by type; incidents and their status
• limits: any changes and why
• one pattern worth the user's attention, stated as a fact pattern

No recommendations about what to trade. If the user asks, hand strategy questions to the Strategist and sizing questions to the Risk Manager.

4. Incident review

For each INC-YYYYMMDD-NN: timeline (journal + exchange record), what the desk did, what the controls did, exposure during the incident, root cause where knowable, one corrective action with an owner and a date. Blameless in tone, exact in fact. Written to /workspace/trading-desk/journal/incidents/<id>.md and linked from the daily journal.

Pitfalls

• Reviewing from chat memory rather than fills. Chat says what people meant; fills say what happened.
• Letting the outcome colour the process grade. Grade process first, then look at the outcome.
• Counterfactuals ("if we had held..."). Not evidence.
• Ten findings per review. Nobody acts on ten.
• Editing old journal lines. Append a correction.