Wick—The Algo-Trading IDE

Strategy Builder View
Splitscreen
Live Paper Algorithmic Trading

Note: Check out the README in the github for more details.

About Me

Hi, I'm Avni Badiwale, a second year at UW-Madison. I'm currently working on a few other cool projects, such as revamping the mapping system with ArcGIS for Epic Systems, and making Machine Learning more accessible at Smith Research Group.

Inspiration

It's less of an inspiration and more of a pain point. There are very few, if any, no/low code algorithmic trading platforms, and even fewer that are free.

Consider Robinhood. Robinhood has become somewhat of a fan favorite between brokerages because of how simple its UI is, and how it makes trading without commission as easy as swiping a few times on your phone.

I wanted to do the same thing, but for algorithmic trading. I try to live my life efficiently, and I'm also heavily in love with systems like N8N (notice the similar UI) that abstract away the pain of automation.

This was my attempt at doing so.

What it does

Maybe I got a bit ahead of myself. The pictures explain it a lot better than I ever could through text, but Wick is a VSCode extension that transforms the IDE you use daily into a lightweight trading powerhouse.

In order to do so, it takes over a vscode window with its custom settings, and custom environment. This was a UI masterpiece.

It has a few components:

Node + Edge based workflow creator/Visual Strategy Builder
Integrated Backtesting
Integrated Local Live Trading
Integrated Charting

Challenges & Solutions

State Management

Syncing state between the visual builder (nodes) and the underlying Python code.

Solution: Real-time code generation and parsing.

Window Management

Creating a "Studio" feel within VS Code's rigid layout system.

Solution: Custom commands to toggle UI elements and intelligent editor group management.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I pulled an all-nighter, and built something I'll use for life.

What I learned

I learned how to design UI at its most difficult! Working with multiple different APIs and libraries as CDNs was quite a challenge, but it came out more beautiful than I could've imagined.

I hope this attracts other people to it too!

What's next for Wick—The Algo-Trading IDE

I only have one real hope for this project: I want Wick to be a full fledged VSCode fork.

It'd allow me to dig deep into the Electron/lower level components, and build an IDE instead of overwriting it. While an extension is easily accessible, it also doesn't have nearly as much control over its environment as a full fork.

The Roadmap Phase 1 (3 months): Fork, strip bloat, add a native chart. Phase 2 (6 months): Migrate current features, rebuild Strategy Builder natively. Phase 3 (12 months): Collaboration, AI co-pilot, marketplace, cloud sync.