backtest360-mcp

MCP server exposing the Backtest360 engine API as tools for AI agents.

Connect any MCP-capable AI client and drive real backtests conversationally: discover indicators, build and validate strategies, run backtests, and read the results — all against the deterministic Backtest360 engine. The server contains no AI and computes no numbers of its own; it is a thin, faithful adapter over the engine HTTP API. Your engine API key and its plan govern everything (permissions, rate limits, data access).

Status: pre-release (v0.1.x). Local stdio transport. Remote (HTTP) deployment is planned.

Install

pip install backtest360-mcp        # or, from a clone: pip install -e .

Requires Python 3.10+ and a Backtest360 API key — create one at backtest360.com.

Configuration

Everything is environment-driven:

Variable	Required	Default	Purpose
BACKTEST360_API_KEY	yes	—	Engine API key, sent as X-API-Key
BACKTEST360_ENGINE_URL	no	https://api.backtest360.com	Engine base URL
BACKTEST360_MCP_TIMEOUT	no	300	Per-request timeout (seconds)
BACKTEST360_MCP_MAX_OUTPUT_BYTES	no	100000	Hard cap on a single tool result

Connect an MCP client

Add the server to your MCP client's configuration (the common mcpServers shape):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "backtest360": {
      "command": "backtest360-mcp",
      "env": {
        "BACKTEST360_API_KEY": "b360_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Prefer not to put the key in a config file? Point command at a small wrapper script that exports the key from your secrets manager and then runs backtest360-mcp. A minimal example config is in examples/mcp.json.

Tools

Tool	What it does
engine_info	Engine version, API contract, health
get_catalog	Reference catalogs: operators, execution modes, stop types, sizing methods, bar frequencies, metric sections
list_indicators	Indicator discovery; per-indicator parameter schemas
get_strategy_schema	JSON Schema for strategy documents
validate_strategy	Validate a strategy without running it — returns structured, locatable errors
run_backtest	Run a historical backtest
get_latest_signal	Evaluate the most recent bar only (no P&L)
compare_backtests	Run several strategies on the same data, side by side
compute_stats	Compute the metric set from an externally produced returns series
search_tickers / list_tickers	Asset discovery for server-side data fetch
get_data_range	Available history and bar-count estimate for a symbol

The cheap static catalogs are also published as MCP resources (backtest360://catalog/{name}, backtest360://schema/strategy) for clients that support resource attachment.

Response shaping

A full backtest result is megabytes; an agent's context is not. run_backtest and compare_backtests take response_detail:

• summary (default) — headline metrics, warnings, counts, equity endpoints
• stats — every metric the plan allows
• full — plus series (downsampled, endpoints preserved) and trades (paginated)

include=["trades", "equity_curve", "monthly_returns", "yearly_returns"] adds specific blocks at the lighter levels. Results exceeding the output cap are reduced further and explicitly marked truncated_by_mcp — never silently cut. Shaping only ever selects and thins what the engine returned; no value is computed or altered.

Error semantics

Designed for agents:

• Fixable by changing the request → returned as a normal result: failed validations arrive as {"valid": false, "errors": [...]} with machine codes and document locations; engine rejections arrive as {"accepted": false, "error": ...} with a hint.
• Not fixable that way → a tool error with explicit guidance: rate limits carry the Retry-After value; engine-busy says retry with backoff; a compute timeout says do not retry and reduce scope instead; permission problems name the missing capability. Engine request ids are included for support.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest                  # unit suite against a mock engine — no network

License

MIT — see LICENSE.