Dashboard Symbol Auto-Discovery

Experiment Overview

Item	Details
Date	2024-12-24
Goal	Fix dashboard showing stale symbols that don't match trained models
Environment	scripts/monitor_dashboard.py, scripts/live_trader.py
Status	Success

Context

The dashboard was showing hardcoded symbols (SPY, QQQ, AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, GOOGL, TSLA, BTCUSD, ETHUSD) even when:

1. No models existed for those symbols
2. Different models were trained (e.g., TMO, PANW, AMZN, etc.)
3. Live trader selected different symbols via universe selection

Root cause:

DashboardConfig.symbols

had hardcoded defaults, and the live trader didn't pass

--symbols

to the dashboard subprocess.

Verified Workflow

Problem Pattern

# WRONG: Hardcoded defaults in DashboardConfig
@dataclass
class DashboardConfig:
    symbols: List[str] = field(default_factory=lambda: [
        "SPY", "QQQ", "AAPL", "MSFT", "NVDA", "GOOGL", "TSLA", "BTCUSD", "ETHUSD"
    ])

Solution: Auto-Discovery

# CORRECT: Empty default, auto-discover from models
@dataclass
class DashboardConfig:
    # Symbols to monitor - auto-discovered from models if not specified
    symbols: List[str] = field(default_factory=list)

# In run_dashboard(), after loading predictors:
if not cfg.symbols:
    if predictors:
        cfg.symbols = list(predictors.keys())
        logger.info(f"Auto-discovered {len(cfg.symbols)} symbols from models: {cfg.symbols}")
    else:
        # Fallback if no models found
        cfg.symbols = ["SPY", "QQQ"]
        logger.warning("No models found - using fallback: SPY, QQQ")

Solution: Pass Symbols from Live Trader

# In live_trader.py, when launching dashboard subprocess:
dashboard_cmd = [
    sys.executable, "-m", "scripts.monitor_dashboard",
    "--paper", str(args.paper),
    "--interval", str(args.dashboard_interval),
    "--keys-file", args.keys_file,
    "--symbols", ",".join(symbols),  # Pass active symbols
    "--show"
]
logger.info(f"Dashboard symbols: {symbols}")

Priority Order

1. CLI

   --symbols

   argument (highest priority) - Explicitly passed symbols
2. Auto-discovery from models - If no CLI symbols, use loaded predictors
3. Fallback (lowest priority) - SPY, QQQ if nothing else available

Failed Attempts (Critical)

Attempt	Why it Failed	Lesson Learned
Hardcoded symbol defaults	Symbols became stale when models changed	Use empty default + auto-discovery
Dashboard subprocess without --symbols	Live trader and dashboard had different symbol lists	Always pass symbols to subprocess
Only auto-discovery	Would ignore explicit user preferences	Support CLI override as highest priority
No fallback	Crashes when no models exist	Always have a minimal fallback

Key Insights

Architecture: Two Separate Symbol Flows

The live trader and dashboard have independent symbol selection:

live_trader.py:
  1. Discovers models from disk (*.pt files)
  2. Runs universe selection (constrained to symbols WITH models)
  3. Launches dashboard subprocess

monitor_dashboard.py (OLD - BROKEN):
  1. Uses hardcoded defaults
  2. Ignores loaded predictors for symbol list
  3. Shows NO_MODEL for symbols without models

monitor_dashboard.py (NEW - FIXED):
  1. If --symbols passed, use those
  2. Else auto-discover from loaded predictors
  3. Else use minimal fallback

Model Discovery Pattern

Both live_trader and dashboard discover models the same way:

model_dir = Path("models/rl_symbols")
model_files = list(model_dir.glob("*.pt"))
for model_file in model_files:
    # Parse SYMBOL_TIMEFRAME.pt
    stem = model_file.stem  # e.g., "AAPL_1Hour"
    parts = stem.rsplit("_", 1)
    symbol, timeframe = parts[0], parts[1]

Dashboard --symbols Argument

Already existed but wasn't being used:

parser.add_argument('--symbols', type=str, default=None,
                   help='Comma-separated symbols to monitor')

# Parsing:
if args.symbols:
    cfg.symbols = [s.strip() for s in args.symbols.split(',') if s.strip()]

Files Modified

scripts/monitor_dashboard.py:
  - Line 297-299: Changed default symbols to empty list
  - Line 961-969: Added auto-discovery logic

scripts/live_trader.py:
  - Line 2033: Added --symbols argument to dashboard command
  - Line 2037: Added logging for dashboard symbols

References

• scripts/monitor_dashboard.py

  : Lines 297-299 (config), 961-969 (auto-discovery)

• scripts/live_trader.py

  : Lines 2028-2037 (subprocess launch)

• models/rl_symbols/*.pt

  : Model files for discovery