Management Rules

Management rules are how a template looks after a position after it's open — taking profit, cutting a loss, rolling a leg. You attach them to the template once, and every position opened from that template carries the same rules and runs them automatically, without you watching the screen.

A management rule is an ordinary When → Then rule, built with the same editor used everywhere in VolNinja. This article covers only what's specific to template management rules — the actions they can take, their priority, and how often they fire. For how conditions themselves are written (fields, operators, the simple and advanced editors), see Rules & Conditions.

Where management rules live

Open a template for editing (the pencil on any row of the Templates list) and scroll to the Management Rules section. Each rule you've added shows as a card; Add Rule creates a new one. An untouched template simply reads "No management rules."

Each card is a compact summary of one rule: its name, a priority badge (for example P5), the Conditions that must be true, and the Action that runs when they are. It's the plain-language readout of the whole rule at a glance.

Building a rule

Add Rule (or the pencil on a card) opens the Create Rule sheet. Above the condition editor sit the fields that define a management rule:

• Rule Name — what you'll recognize it by, such as Take Profit at 50%.
• Priority (1–100) — the order rules are considered when more than one could fire. Lower number = higher priority, so a priority-1 stop-loss is weighed before a priority-10 take-profit.
• Max Executions — how many times this rule may fire on a position. A take-profit that closes the whole position needs to fire only once; leave it empty for unlimited.
• Conditions — the When. This is the shared editor described in Rules & Conditions; an empty set of conditions means the action runs unconditionally (the card shows this as Always).
• Action — the Then, covered next.

What a management rule can do

The Action Type picker sets what happens when the conditions are met:

• Close Position — close the trade. A Close % lets you take part of it off (100% closes it entirely; 50% closes half).
• Close Leg — close a single named leg of a multi-leg position; you pick Leg to Close.
• Roll Leg — close a leg and reopen it at a new strike, without exiting the position. See Rolling a leg for the solvers and how a roll executes.
• Open Position — add another position while this one is managed.

For the actions that place a closing order — Close Position and Close Leg — an Execution Strategy decides how that order is sent:

• Peg to Mid — work the order at the mid-price and try to get filled at a fair level.
• Market Order — take the current market immediately, prioritizing a certain fill over price.

How priority and limits work together

Because a position can hold several management rules at once — a take-profit and two stop-losses is a common set — two settings keep them orderly:

• Priority decides which rule is considered first when more than one is eligible in the same moment. Give the rules you least want to miss (your stop-losses) the lower, higher-priority numbers.
• Max Executions stops a rule from firing more often than it should. A one-and-done exit gets a limit of 1; a rule you want to keep re-checking is left unlimited.

From template to live positions

The rules you set here are a blueprint. When a position opens from the template, it gets its own copy of these rules and begins evaluating them live. From that point you can manage each position's rules individually — pausing one, resetting how many times it has fired — from the position itself; see Automating a Position.

Related settings

• Standing Orders — resting exit orders parked at your broker, a different way to exit than a management rule VolNinja evaluates itself.
• Entry Execution — how the template opens a position in the first place.
• Template Legs — the legs a management rule can act on.