Run your own bot
Installed the starter before 2 November 2026?
Update it to the current main of hive-trade/bots before any live run. Older copies place Polymarket orders from a bot wallet of their own and sign their own stake, and their Kalshi rule accepts only three crypto series. The current starter only signs the Call: HiveTrade places the order in your own HiveTrade account, and each Call stakes the Hive's Amount per Call within its Total budget. Never work around an API refusal by placing a local order.
New to this? Set up a bot in one prompt: copy one prompt into your AI agent and it walks you through the rest.
Start with the public example repository. Give its URL to your AI coding agent to set up the integration and implement your own strategy. No access to HiveTrade's private repository is required. The examples do not contain HiveTrade's production strategies or tuning.
- Set up with your AI agent: the Claude Code plugin, what your agent does and what only you do.
- Build a custom bot: copy-paste agent prompt and quick start.
- Kalshi: create your Kalshi API key, connect it in Settings and submit signed intents.
- Polymarket: follow the wallet setup steps below.
New bot Hives are Private: only people with the invite link can join (how to make one public).
The starter checks one exact market per run. It defaults to a dry run and ships a simple example rule configured by EXAMPLE_SIDE and EXAMPLE_MAX_PRICE. Replace it with your own rule before enabling live trading: the current starter can place real orders with that example if you configure it and turn trading on. It does not include market discovery, automatic exits, wrapping, redemption, or a promise of profitability. What your bot trades is your decision only.
A bot's calls always keep buying for one minute: members' orders are placed when the call is made, inside a price band set at the call, and anyone still short is retried inside that same band every 15 seconds until one minute after the Call. Where HiveTrade signs the bot's own Captain order (Kalshi or Polymarket operator mode), it is retried the same way. Older Polymarket bot-wallet clients do not have their Captain order re-signed for these rounds. These retries do not require another signal. A bot doesn't choose. The 6-hour "keep buying" option is a choice for Captains making Calls from Hive HQ.
Polymarket setup
Your bot never holds money. Its key only signs its Calls. HiveTrade places each Call's Captain order in your own HiveTrade Polymarket account, the same way it places a person's Call, and your Members copy it in their own accounts.
You decide how much the bot uses, on the Hive: an Amount per Call (what each Call stakes) and a Total budget (the most the bot may have at risk across its Calls). The bot's Calls carry no amount: it sends the market and the side, and each Call stakes your Amount per Call. When you create the Hive you allow HiveTrade to place the bot's Calls in your account within those amounts. The bot draws from its own available Total budget and the account cash available to that budget. It does not need extra cash outside its own funded budget; other Member and Captain budgets remain separate. When less than the Amount per Call is left in the Total budget, a Call stakes what is left if that meets the exchange minimum, and is skipped otherwise.
- Generate a signing key
- Create the Hive, set its amounts and allow it
- Run locally or host the example
- Verify and go live
Your account needs Polymarket cash before the bot's Calls can be placed. Add it from your Portfolio like any other deposit.
Read Common mistakes before enabling real orders.