cTrader/docs/research-findings.md

Research: building & running cTrader cBots without Windows

This documents what was established before building the scaffold in this repo. The two load-bearing claims were each adversarially fact-checked (the verifier was instructed to refute them); both came back CONFIRMED. Where a fact was verified locally on this machine rather than only from the web, it is marked [verified locally].

The claim under test

It is possible to create cTrader cBots directly in C# with no Windows, produce .algo files, and run them in a container.

Verdict: true, in two officially-supported halves — but the second half is recent enough that older sources (and people relying on them) say it's impossible.

The era split (why answers conflict)

Era	Build	Run on Linux
Old cAlgo, .NET Framework 4.x (≤ cTrader 4.1, pre-2022)	Windows-only cTrader.exe /compile (Spotware: "not actually supported")	No
Modern cTrader Automate, .NET 6 (cTrader 4.2+, Mar 2022)	dotnet build + cTrader.Automate NuGet — cross-platform	Desktop only at first; Linux Docker since cTrader 5.4 (~Aug 2025)

cTrader Desktop 4.2 (30 Mar 2022) "removed any dependency from the cTrader application for the build process" and let developers "compile cBots and indicators using the 'dotnet build' command and even write code and compile it on Linux or Mac."

1. Compiling .algo on Linux — CONFIRMED

• Official SDK package: cTrader.Automate on NuGet, owner spotware (Spotware Systems Ltd.). Description: "Provides cTrader Automate SDK to build cBots and Indicators in ALGO format." Multi-targets net6.0+ and net40, no dependencies → installs and runs fine via dotnet on Linux. (Latest seen: 1.0.17, 2026-03-27.)
• Mechanism: the package ships MSBuild .targets. Building a class library that references it and contains an algo type (a class deriving from Robot/Indicator) bundles the compiled assembly into the .algo. [verified locally] — a clean dotnet build -c Release on this Linux box produced a valid .algo with 0 errors.
• What you need on Linux: just the .NET SDK + NuGet access. No Windows, no Wine, no cTrader desktop.
• Beware the name collision: there is a separate third-party NuGet package cAlgo.API (owner st.alexofgod, MIT). It is not the Spotware SDK. Use cTrader.Automate.

Build verified, plus a local finding

• The .algo filename quirk: cTrader.Automate 1.0.17 names the output after the parent directory of the project folder — _AlgoFileName = GetFileName(GetDirectoryName(MSBuildProjectDirectory)) in its cTrader.Automate.targets, with no override property. [verified locally] Two bots in one folder collide; this repo renames artifacts in build.sh.
• .algo format — what it actually is. [verified locally] A built .algo begins with the ASCII magic bytes algo (61 6c 67 6f) and is not a ZIP (no PK header, no central directory). So it is Spotware's own proprietary container, not a renamed archive — settling a question the web sources left open. Per Spotware it wraps the compiled assembly (+ referenced DLLs, + optional source/symbols) and is encrypted; the encryption algorithm is undisclosed and there is no public byte-level spec.

2. Running .algo headless in a container — CONFIRMED (recent)

• Official runner: cTrader CLI / Console, distributed as a Linux Docker image ghcr.io/spotware/ctrader-console (repo spotware/ctrader-console-docker). Docs: it "enables traders to manage account and algo-trading operations directly from a console or terminal without launching or relying on the regular cTrader application" and "is available as a Linux Docker image … All cTrader CLI features are available when using the Docker image, including backtesting." Mount .algo files to /mnt/Robots.
• Recency caveat: available only in cTrader 4.8+, works only with modern .NET 6 algos, and the Linux image arrived with cTrader 5.4 (~Aug 2025). As late as Nov 2024 a Spotware moderator wrote "Unfortunately cTrader CLI is not supported on Linux", and DIY Wine/Mono attempts failed. So pre-2025 sources correctly said it was impossible — this is the single most likely source of disagreement.
• The runner is a host, not a compiler — it runs/backtests .algo files; it does not build them. Compilation is the dotnet build step above.

3. cTrader Automate vs. Open API (don't conflate)

Two different products that can both run on headless Linux:

• cTrader Automate (cBots / .algo) — the strategy framework (cAlgo.API, indicators, backtesting, optimization). Runs inside the cTrader runtime / the cTrader CLI. This is what this repo targets.
• cTrader Open API — a separate protocol (Protobuf over TLS/TCP or WebSocket, OAuth2; endpoints live.ctraderapi.com / demo.ctraderapi.com) for external apps that connect to a broker backend. Official SDKs: .NET (cTrader.OpenAPI.Net) and Python (ctrader-open-api); language-neutral otherwise. It gives you trading + market data + account access, but no cBot framework, indicators, or backtesting — you write all strategy logic yourself.

Choose Automate + cTrader CLI to reuse the cBot framework and backtesting on Linux; choose Open API for a fully standalone, language-flexible service.

Limitations / honesty notes

• The cTrader desktop app is Windows/macOS only — not needed for this workflow, but there is no native Linux desktop.
• Live trading needs a broker account + cTrader ID credentials.
• The .algo container is proprietary and encrypted; any legitimate Linux build goes through the official cTrader.Automate package — there is no independent OSS packer.
• cTrader's docs/tooling move quickly; version numbers above reflect mid-2026.

Key sources

• cTrader Desktop 4.2 release — https://www.spotware.com/news/ctrader-desktop-4-2/
• Use Visual Studio and other IDEs — https://help.ctrader.com/ctrader-algo/documentation/visual-studio-ides/
• Compiler (MSBuild properties) — https://help.ctrader.com/ctrader-algo/documentation/all-algos/compiling/
• cTrader CLI — https://help.ctrader.com/ctrader-algo/documentation/ctrader-cli/
• Console Docker image — https://github.com/spotware/ctrader-console-docker
• cTrader.Automate package — https://www.nuget.org/packages/cTrader.Automate/
• Algo security measures (encryption) — https://help.ctrader.com/ctrader-algo/documentation/protection-measures/
• Open API getting started — https://help.ctrader.com/open-api/
• Forum: Linux not supported (Nov 2024) — https://community.ctrader.com/forum/ctrader-algo/45395/