Otto

An effortless, local, AI-operated financial terminal. You say what you want in plain language; an AI agent drives the terminal for you — pulling market data, running backtests, managing a paper portfolio, digesting news, and more. Everything runs on your machine.

Otto is built to be operated by an AI rather than clicked by hand: the whole product is exposed as a safe, machine-operable tool surface over MCP, so a coding agent (Claude Code / Codex) can run it end to end while a human watches the dashboard.

Highlights

• Single-process local app — a FastAPI backend serves both the JSON API and the built React UI at http://127.0.0.1:8765/.
• AI operator surface — a standard-library-only MCP server (src/local_terminal/mcp_server.py) exposes routes and gated actions as tools.
• Safety-gated by design — live trading, credential entry, and code execution are off by default and refuse loudly; the default runtime is read-only / paper / dry-run.
• Public, no-key market data where available (crypto, equities, FX, macro), with an optional local key vault for free-tier providers (Finnhub / FRED / Twelve Data).
• Workbenches — Markets, Crypto, Portfolio (create / import / export / demo), Backtest, News digest, Algo scan, and an AI-chat research surface over local artifacts.
• ~460 tests covering the contract, safety gates, providers, and UI end-to-end.

Screenshots

Multi-asset markets board (crypto, US/TW equities, FX) and the live crypto workbench — public, no-key data where available; live trading and code execution stay gated off:

Markets	Crypto

Run

Single-process self-use (serves the built UI + API at http://127.0.0.1:8765/):

# Windows
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m src.local_terminal

# macOS / Linux
python -m src.local_terminal

Build the frontend once (or after UI changes):

npm --prefix frontend install && npm --prefix frontend run build

Developer hot-reload UI stays available via npm --prefix frontend run dev (proxies /api to the backend).

AI operation

Otto is driven by plain-language commands: you tell the agent what you want, and it operates the terminal through the MCP tool surface (python -m src.local_terminal.mcp_server, registered in .mcp.json). See docs/AI_OPERATOR_GUIDE.md. Live trading, credential entry, and disabled runtimes stay gated behind explicit contracts.

Architecture

• src/local_terminal/ — FastAPI backend: routes, action contract, provider adapters, safety/secret gates, local state storage, and the MCP operator server.
• frontend/ — React + Vite single-page UI, served static in production.
• tests/ — pytest suite (contract, gates, providers) plus Playwright e2e.
• docs/ — the AI operator guide, architecture notes, and the planning/audit ledger.

Clean-room note

Otto is a clean-room reimplementation: it was built by observing a reference terminal's workflow and shape, never by reading, copying, porting, or adapting its code or assets. Implementation independence is enforced, not just claimed — AGENTS.md defines the source wall and tests/test_clean_room_source_wall.py fails the build if product runtime surfaces reference the observed source or leak third-party branding.

The private third-party observation notes are intentionally not published, to keep the clean-room boundary intact (see docs/reference/). It is not a fork, crack, asset copy, or continuation of any commercial product; branding, commercial mechanics, and unsafe execution paths are replaced with local equivalents.

Safety model

Out of scope unless a later, separately reviewed safety contract explicitly permits it:

• Third-party branding, logos, trademarks, commercial copy, subscriptions, billing.
• Reachable real orders, private API-key order flows, real balance reads, margin, leverage, short exposure, or derivatives live execution.

The default build is paper / dry-run / read-only.

Testing

python -m pytest -q          # ~460 tests
python -m ruff check .

License

MIT.