# Dumb Trader

Side-only execution strategy.

## Best Used When
- Hermes or the operator wants a simple one-sided executor
- trend data should be ignored for now
- the market direction is already decided elsewhere

## Avoid When
- you want the strategy to infer direction on its own
- you need adaptive trend following

## How It Works
- The strategy acts only on the configured `trade_side`.
- `buy` and `sell` place orders on that side only when the live balance-aware sizing step returns a usable amount that also clears the venue minimum.
- `both` does not invent direction and therefore holds.
- `entry_offset_pct` sets the limit price offset for new entries.
- `cooldown_ticks` pauses the next few ticks after a successful order.
- If the live balance refresh fails, the strategy now holds for that tick instead of reusing a stale balance snapshot.

## Parameters
- `trade_side`: Allowed side selection. `buy` and `sell` make it one-sided; `both` means the strategy will hold.
- `entry_offset_pct`: Limit-price offset used for new entries. Buy orders are placed above the last price, sell orders below it.
- `order_notional_quote`: Target quote notional per order.
- `max_order_notional_quote`: Optional hard cap on quote notional per order.
- `dust_collect`: Lets the shared sizing helper consume leftover size more aggressively when a venue minimum would otherwise strand a small remainder.
- `cooldown_ticks`: Number of ticks to wait after a successful order before the strategy can act again.
- `debug_orders`: Enables order-placement debug logging.

## Hermes Policy Mapping
- Hermes controls whether this side-only trader is active.
- Hermes may set the quote notional and offsets.
- `apply_policy()` records the derived values but does not rewrite the config.

## Notes
- This strategy is intentionally dumb for now.
- It ignores trend inputs.
- It still uses live fee rates for sizing.
- If the account cannot afford an order within the configured size limits, the strategy holds instead of falling back to the requested notional.
- A failed account-info refresh is treated as an unsafe state, so restart-time stale balances will not drive another order.

## Useful Example
```json
{
  "trade_side": "buy",
  "entry_offset_pct": 0.0035,
  "order_notional_quote": 25,
  "max_order_notional_quote": 40,
  "dust_collect": true,
  "cooldown_ticks": 3,
  "debug_orders": false
}
```

This is a practical long-only setup. It keeps buying on the configured side,
uses a modest entry offset, and avoids oversized last orders.