> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trdrs.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Core concepts
> Learn how venues, groups, providers and accounts fit together, and the words these docs use for each.
Every page in these docs uses the same small set of words. This page explains each one, shows how
they fit together, and says which key reaches what. Read it once before you build, and come back
when a word on another page isn't clear.
## How the pieces fit
A firm on trdrs runs a **venue**. The venue holds the firm's brand, its keys and the **providers**
its accounts trade through. Every provider says how it's signed into: some use the trader's own
login, some an API key or a wallet key, and the paper book needs no login at all. The trader has
one way in: they sign in to trdrs, and the accounts the firm attached are in their list.
On top of that, a venue can turn on **venue rules**: its own order limits, stages that judge each
account, and analytics. Venue rules are optional.
```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart TD
V["Venue
brand · listing · keys"]
V --> L["A provider with its own login
login: trader's own · OAuth · API key · wallet key"]
V --> P["trdrs paper book
login: none · the firm issues accounts,
or the trader opens their own Demo"]
V --> O["A firm's own provider
login: firm's credentials · public provider"]
TR["Trader
signs in to trdrs; the accounts the firm attached are in the list;
a provider that needs its own login asks for it once"]
L & P & O --> TR
VR["Venue rules, optional
order limits · stages · analytics"]
VR -.-> V
```
Here's how that looks for two kinds of firm:
* **A prop firm running evaluations** issues evaluation accounts on the paper book, turns venue
rules on, and sets a stage for each evaluation. You issue the account, the trader signs in and
finds it in their list, every fill is measured against your stage rule, and you advance the
account when it passes.
* **A firm whose traders already hold accounts at a provider** gets a tile in Connect that opens
that provider. Its traders sign in with their own login, and the firm keeps its own back office.
The trader never sees how an account was attached. They sign in and it's there, and a provider
that needs its own login asks for it once.
## The words
These are the words every page uses, one word for each thing.
| Word | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Venue** | A firm's whole setup on trdrs: its brand, listing, keys, providers, groups and accounts. |
| **Group** | A set of accounts with one route and one set of rules. A prop firm or a broker is a group. |
| **Route** | Where a group's orders go: the venue's own book, or a named account at a provider. |
| **Provider** | A market that a venue's accounts trade through. |
| **Built-in provider** | A provider trdrs wrote, such as the trdrs paper book. [Providers](/providers) lists them all. |
| **Public provider** | A provider someone else wrote against the published provider contract, which passed the self-check. |
| **Login style** | How a provider is signed into: the trader's own login, OAuth, an API key, a wallet key, the firm's credentials, or none. |
| **Paper book** | trdrs's own simulated market, priced from live data. It holds a trader's Demo and every account a firm issues. |
| **Evaluation account** | An account a firm issues to a trader on the paper book, judged by the firm's stage rule. |
| **Stage** | The rule an account is judged by: a profit target, a number of trading days, a drawdown rule and the breaches that end it. |
| **Demo** | A trader's own practice account on the paper book, and nothing else. A firm's issued account is never called a Demo. |
| **Connect** | The account picker a trader opens in the trading app. |
| **Listed** | A venue that's approved to appear in Connect. |
| **Venue rules** | The venue applying its own order limits, stages and analytics to its accounts. They're optional, and on once the venue has its first group. |
| **Venue key** | The key your venue's backend uses. You create and revoke it in your trdrs profile, and it never goes in a browser. |
| **Trading API key** | The key a trader uses for programmatic trading: market data, orders and account state. |
| **Back office** | An optional tool for running one venue by hand. It uses the same operations your backend calls. |
| **Legacy Partner API** | The firm routes that came before venues. Venue routes replace them; Connect pre-registration stays on the Partner key. |
You may know some of these by other names. Many firms say "challenge" where these docs say
evaluation account, and "phase" where these docs say stage. The words mean the same things.
## What a venue can do
This table shows what a venue can do today and where. "Applied" means an order from the trading
app goes through it in the sandbox and the trader sees the result. "Preview" means it works in the
sandbox and may still change.
| A venue can | Where | Standing |
| - | - | - |
| Set its brand (name, logo and blurb) and get Listed so it appears in Connect | Back office, Overview | Applied |
| Hold a Venue key for its backend, and a Partner key for pre-registering traders | Profile, API access | Applied |
| Read its usage and the receipt of a balance operation, read and set each account's five risk controls, and register webhooks, all with its Venue key | Venue API | Applied |
| Choose a provider its accounts trade through, from the built-in providers its Providers tab offers | Providers tab | Applied |
| Plug in a public provider: register it, connect, validate, and find and bind accounts | Providers tab | Preview |
| Show or hide a plugged-in provider to its own traders | Providers tab | Applied, and off until you turn it on |
| Issue accounts on the paper book into a group, bound to its published risk policy, then list, credit, debit, reset, halt and resume them and read their analytics | Accounts tab, Venue API | Applied |
| Run groups, each with one route and one set of rules | Groups and routes | Applied |
| Choose which instruments its accounts may trade, and turn each one on or off | Instruments tab | Applied when an order is placed |
| Set limits on order size, position size, notional and the instrument list, and halt new entries | Conditions tab | Applied when an order is placed |
| Set its markup, its route's collar and its commission | Conditions and Routes tabs | Applied at the fill |
| Publish its own risk policy: margin, stop-out, recovery, valuation, settlement and posting terms | Venue API | Preview. Publishing puts a version in force for every account bound to the policy |
| Charge financing on CFDs | Its published risk policy | Applied at each rollover, under the policy version the account is bound to |
| Run stages with a profit target, trading days, disqualifying rules and a drawdown rule (static or trailing, daily or total) | Stages tab | Applied. A breach flattens and locks the account |
| Advance an account that passed a stage into a new account in the next group | Stages tab, Venue API | Applied |
| Turn venue rules on or off | Overview | Applied. Creating the first group turns them on |
| Hedge its customers' net exposure in a provider account it owns | Venue API | Preview |
| Read the balance, equity, positions and orders of accounts held at a provider | Accounts tab | Applied. Stages don't judge these accounts yet, so their eligibility read is refused as `stage_version_unrecorded` |
| Apply its order limits, markup and commission to an account held at a provider | | Not built |
Margin and financing come only from your published risk policy. A margin or financing figure sent
with your conditions is refused, so there's one place that says what an account must hold.
## What a provider can do
| A provider can | Built-in providers | Public providers |
| - | - | - |
| Say how it's signed into | Each declares its login style, which [Providers](/providers) lists | In its declaration, or the firm's credentials when it says nothing |
| Be a tile a trader connects through in Connect | Each one with a login of its own | Once it's Listed |
| Be the market a venue's accounts trade through | The ones a venue's Providers tab offers | Once it passes the self-check |
| Hold a firm's issued accounts and a trader's own Demo | The paper book | No |
| Take an order the venue's conditions admitted, with the venue's markup, collar and commission | The paper book | Yes, over the provider contract |
| Report the fills, positions and account state the venue reads | The paper book, and the others through their own account view | Yes, over the provider contract |
A company can play several of these parts at once. A built-in provider can be a tile in Connect and
also a provider a venue plugs in, and a firm that runs a venue is also a tile once it's Listed.
## Where each key fits
| Key | Held by | Reaches |
| - | - | - |
| [Venue key](/guides/venue-keys) (`trdrs_vk_…`) | Your venue's backend | `/api/partner/venues/{venueId}/…`: the venue's configuration, its accounts and their risk controls, usage, balance receipts and webhooks, each behind a named scope |
| [Trading API key](/api/keys) (`trdrs_sk_…`) | A trader who trades programmatically, or your trading app's server | Market data, news, trading, account state and risk controls for the accounts the key's owner holds |
| Partner key (`trdrs_sk_…`) | A firm's backend, for Connect pre-registration and the Legacy Partner API | `/api/partner/` outside the venue routes |
| Session | A person signed in to the trading app or the back office | The trading app, and the back office's own calls |
One Venue key is enough for most firms. Add a Partner key only if you pre-register traders for
Connect. A Trading API key and a Partner key look the same, because nothing in the `trdrs_sk_`
string says which scope it has, so store them under different names. You manage all three in
[profile API access](https://sandbox.trdrs.co/settings/api).
A browser never uses a secret key to call trdrs. The installed back office keeps its Venue key on
its own server, and the hosted back office uses your signed-in session.
## Next steps
Create a Venue key and issue your first evaluation account in the sandbox.
Learn what the sandbox holds and how you move to production.
See which key reaches which routes, and how to keep keys safe.