A tour of the Scalpel cockpit

Scalpel is opinionated: one screen built for long-only scalping of US stocks, pre-market first, driven from the keyboard and talking to you as you trade. Nothing on it is decoration. This tour names every part and links to the guide that goes deep on it. What Scalpel is for, and what it deliberately leaves out: guide 1.9.

The whole screen

A short splash plays when Scalpel starts; click or press any key to skip it. If the licence screen shows instead, see guide 1.3.

The header

The left half sets what you look at and how orders are handled.

• VIEW switches the middle of the screen between Trade (the desks) and Analytics (your statistics for the current mode, guide 6.4).
• MODE is SIM (a paper account filled against the live book) or LIVE (real orders to your IBKR account). It switches at once, no restart, and each mode keeps its own positions, orders and history (guide 6.1, guide 6.2).
• The clock is New York time, with the session under it: Pre-market (04:00 to 09:30), Regular hours, After-hours (to 20:00) or Closed, plus Half day, Weekend or Holiday when they apply. The dot is green in regular hours, amber in extended hours and grey when closed.

The right half is your account and your exits.

In LIVE, the P&L figures come from IBKR by default, which includes trades you made elsewhere; Settings > Trading > Header P&L (LIVE) can switch them to Scalpel's own trades only.

Desks

Below the header sit the desks, four by default and up to six: the narrow + rail on the right adds one. Each desk is a complete station for one stock. One desk is always focused, outlined in blue: it is the one your hotkeys trade. Click a desk to focus it, or move with Left, Right and Tab.

The desk header 1 has the desk number (D1 to D6), the TRADER / SCAN switch (a scan desk holds scanner panels instead, guide 8.5), a colour swatch to tell desks apart, the symbol box, the session badge with a data flag when something is off (DELAYED, NO DATA, STALE, guide 2.5), and buttons to clear the desk, copy its layout to every desk and hide it. Loading symbols and arranging desks: guide 2.1, guide 2.2.

The intel strip 2 appears when there is something to know about the stock: a fresh catalyst, a shelf that lets the company sell shares, how hard it is to borrow. Each chip has a one-line summary (guide 9.5).

LEVEL 2 3 4 is a DAS-style montage, the layout momentum traders know from DAS Trader: bids on the left, asks on the right, one row per venue, each price level in its own colour band. Scalpel is not affiliated with DAS. Above the ladder are the quote, the day's open, high, low, VWAP and volume, the bid and ask totals and spread, an imbalance and buy-sell delta strip, and a one-line read. With a position, a green or red LONG strip shows your size, average and P&L. The time and sales tape runs down the right edge: green prints hit the ask, red ones the bid. How to read it, and what it can and cannot tell you: guide 3.1, guide 3.3.

CHART 5 shows 10-second to daily candles with VWAP and two moving averages, a one-line chart read above it, and with a position your entry, stop and take-profit lines, which you can drag (guide 3.5, guide 5.2).

The order bar 6 is the mouse version of the hotkeys: the four buy presets with their dollar size, the sizing method, offsets, and once you hold shares Full, 1/2, 1/4, 1/2 Ask, 1/2 Mid, B/E, Trail and Cancel (guide 4.6).

ORDERS & POSITIONS 7 has a Positions tab and an Orders tab, NET P&L after fees, and a FEE column with each fill's commission.

Every panel title bar can be dragged to reorder or resize panels, and the cog on LEVEL 2 and CHART opens that panel's settings (guide 2.3).

The status bar

• The IBKR pill reads Connected (green), Connecting (amber), Disconnected with a reason (red) or Off (grey). Click it to switch the link off or on (guide 1.4).
• Update ready appears when a new version has downloaded. Click it for what is new, then restart now or let it install when you quit; Scalpel never restarts while you hold a position, a working order or a live stop (guide 12.2).
• On the right, the version you are running. Quote it when you ask for help.

Things that appear when needed

• Banners under the header: the connection banner while IBKR is down, a red RISK LOCK banner when the daily loss limit trips (guide 7.1), and licence or update notices.
• Toasts at the bottom centre: fills, warnings, scanner alerts. Most come with a sound or a voice line too (guide 10.2).
• The cheatsheet (?): every key on one screen. Esc closes it.

Keyboard and sound first

You can run a whole session without touching the mouse: buy with Shift+1 to Shift+4, scale out with Ctrl+X and Ctrl+C, breakeven with B, trail with Shift+T, flatten with Esc (guide 4.3). Scalpel answers out loud: fills, partial exits, stop-outs, take-profits, new scanner names and connection problems all have a voice callout or a sound (guide 10.1). The optional tape sound, inspired by Aggr.trade, turns the prints into tones so you can hear buyers and sellers without looking (guide 3.4).

Zoom the whole cockpit with Ctrl+-, Ctrl+= and Ctrl+0, from 70% to 125%, or with UI scale in Settings > Appearance. On a Mac, Ctrl is Cmd throughout.