Building a Template

A template is a reusable blueprint for a trade: which option legs it has, how their strikes are chosen, how the order is worked into the market, and the rules that manage it afterward. Build a template once and you can run it again and again — by hand from the Quick Execute card, or automatically from a strategy. This article walks the template editor top to bottom.

Open Templates (under Automation in the nav), then choose New Template to open the Create Template sheet. Everything below is a section of that sheet; you can fill only the parts you need and save.

Basic information

Give the template a Name — this is what you'll see on its Quick Execute button and in the template list. Root Symbol and Underlying Symbol are preset to SPXW and SPX — VolNinja trades SPX weekly options today (more symbols are on the way), so you don't set these yourself.

Two switches control where the template shows up: Enabled makes it available to run, and Favorite promotes it onto the Dashboard's Quick Execute card. When it's a favorite you can also pick a Category (to group it) and a Button Color. A Description is optional.

Combo legs

The Combo Legs section is the trade itself — the options the template buys and sells. Choose Add Leg to open the leg form, and repeat for each leg (a short strangle has two, a spread two, and so on).

Each leg is defined by its Action (Buy or Sell), Option Type (Call or Put), how many days to expiration (DTE — 0 for same-day), a Ratio (its size relative to the other legs), and a Strike Selector that decides the strike at execution time rather than pinning a fixed number — by Delta, by Premium, or by Offset (strikes from at-the-money). Because the strike is chosen when the template runs, the same blueprint adapts to wherever the market is that day.

The full leg form — every selector and its options — is covered in Template legs.

Entry execution

The Entry Execution Settings section (collapsible — expand it to configure) controls how the order is worked into the market once you run the template: where the order starts pricing (mid, passive, or aggressive), and how it's retried and re-priced until it fills or gives up. The defaults are a sensible middle ground, so you can leave this alone at first and tune it later.

Because it's the difference between a patient fill and a fast one, entry execution has its own article: Entry execution covers the anchor price, the attempt loop, and every retry and timeout control in detail.

Management and protection

A template can carry its own automation so positions it opens are managed without you watching them. These are two distinct mechanisms:

• Management Rules — app-side rules that act on the position while it's open: take profit, close a percentage, close or roll a leg, all gated by conditions you set. See Management rules.
• Standing Orders — broker-side stop/limit orders submitted to Interactive Brokers when the position opens, so protection stays in force even if the app isn't running. They behave differently from app-side rules in important ways — see Standing orders.

Both are built from the same rule/condition/action model used everywhere in VolNinja — explained once in Rules and conditions. For how the two mechanisms differ and when to reach for each, see Automating exits & management.

Save and use it

Choose Create Template to save. It now appears under Active Templates on the Templates page, where you can Start it to open a position, or edit, clone, and favorite it. From there, running it is covered in Placing a trade; handing it to an automated strategy is covered in Running a strategy.