Zentalk is a small set of programs that makes it easy to monitor and make use data from Zenbot without interupting its operation. The start options, trades, periods and a lot more is available. The most important parts are the talker program that enables websockets (WS) on Zenbot and some client programs to make use of the data from Zenbot. The programs are zentalk, zenmailer, zenxmpp, zenout and zenwho. The first one is a fullblown websocket interactive program to inspect and change the Zenbot internal data. The other programs are lightweight websocket streaming clients which can subscribe to data objects from Zenbot for use in other programs. With zenxmpp you can subscribe to Zenbot events like trades, candles, periods and signals. Further more you can set alarms to fire and receive with your xmpp client when price and RSI levels are above or below the levels of your choice. Learn more about alarms and subscriptions in the zenxmpp section further down.
With zenout as an example one can do some simple node programming to use the output for anything thinkable. Here are some examples:
- a messaging bot which can send trading events
- write data that later can be used for statistics or graphing
- producing data for a web front end
- setting alarms based on prices or signal levels
- and a lot of other stuff
All this is done without changing anything with the Zenbot logic except some small changes done in engine.js This small scale modifications do not interfere with the Zenbot program. New features are made by modification or making of new client programs. In the zenmailer and zenxmpp program, the commenting shows how to implement other types of messaging (or other functions)
The talker program is a leightweight websocket server loosely connected to Zenbot. Some small modifications have been necessary to the lib/engine.js program to get useful data from the system. These modifications are kept small for Zentalk to have a slim footprint in Zenbot.
A a single TCP port is used for all the Zentalk programs. This port is automatically selected from free ports in a short range of ports, currently 3000 to 3020. That should be sufficient for most use cases. By editing conf.js it is possible to modify the range if the current range does not suit your needs.
Zentalk is announcing the port like this when you start the bot:
Zen master is talking to you on port 3000
The programs are invoked from the console like this (the example is for zenmailer):
./zenmailer.js -c localhost:3000
If you open the required ports on the firewall you can also run the utilities from a remote location, either from outside or from your local network. Then you need to use the ip address of your Zenbot installation. Obviously you also need to copy the Zentalk client programs and configuration/template files to your local computer. Then the invokation will be like this:
./zenmailer.js -c <ip_address_of_your_remote_server:remote_port>
The interactive zentalk program connects to a TCP port corresponding to your zenbot currency pair. It has a comand line interface with a few simple commands to control its operation. A help command shows the available commands. The help command gives this output:
> help
Usage: [ID] <command> [object] [value]
who (returns client ID)
id (returns client ID)
<ID> get <object>
<ID> sub|unsub <event>
<ID> alarm <alarm> <value>
<ID> set <option> <value>
<ID> commit (commits changes)
Try "help" <get|sub|alarm|set|commit>
The <ID> (IM-client ID) is only used
when called from a IM client (zenxmpp)
Remove the <ID> from the command
when other clients are used
>
Help for subscription example:
> help sub
<ID> sub|unsub <event>
Events are:
trades, candles, periods, signals
Example: "sub candles"
IM-client: "27 sub trades"
>
Help for setting alarms:
> help alarm
<ID> alarm <event> <value>
Alarms are:
price_hi, price_lo, rsi_hi, rsi_lo
Example: "27 alarm rsi_hi 84"
The data is delevered as beautified JSON data. Here are a some examples:
> get options
{
"paper": true,
"strategy": "trend_ema",
"reset_profit": true,
"sell_stop_pct": 0,
"buy_stop_pct": 0,
"profit_stop_enable_pct": 0,
"profit_stop_pct": 1,
"max_slippage_pct": 5,
"buy_pct": 99,
"sell_pct": 99,
"order_adjust_time": 30000,
"max_sell_loss_pct": 25,
"order_poll_time": 5000,
"markup_pct": 0,
"order_type": "maker",
"poll_trades": 30000,
"currency_capital": 1000,
"asset_capital": 0,
"rsi_periods": 14,
"avg_slippage_pct": 0.045,
"stats": true,
"mode": "paper",
"selector": "bitfinex.XRP-USD",
"period": "2m",
"min_periods": 52,
"trend_ema": 26,
"neutral_rate": "auto",
"oversold_rsi_periods": 14,
"oversold_rsi": 10
}
> get period
{
"period_id": "2m12490313",
"size": "2m",
"time": 1498837560000,
"open": 0.255,
"high": 0.25502,
"low": 0.255,
"close": 0.25502,
"volume": 3160.1400000000003,
"close_time": 1498837618000,
"trend_ema": 0.25246624412245805,
"oversold_rsi_avg_gain": 0.00038205180780631186,
"oversold_rsi_avg_loss": 0.00018113157638666248,
"oversold_rsi": 68,
"trend_ema_rate": 0.08098743204999516,
"trend_ema_stddev": 0.016211589445806786,
"id": "ff7f935e",
"selector": "bitfinex.XRP-USD",
"session_id": "51b6adf3",
"rsi_avg_gain": 0.00038205180780631186,
"rsi_avg_loss": 0.00018113157638666248,
"rsi": 68
}
> get balance
{
"asset": "3901.42011835",
"currency": "11.11735266"
}
> get trades
[
{
"time": 1498836575000,
"execution_time": 61000,
"slippage": 0.0004499802449624344,
"type": "buy",
"size": "3911.49743185",
"fee": 3.90532544379,
"price": "0.25321389",
"order_type": "maker",
"id": "74db29b9",
"selector": "bitfinex.XRP-USD",
"session_id": "51b6adf3",
"mode": "paper"
}
]
>
Before you use the set command, it is wise to perform a get options command to see which options are used. For each option you change, you will see the old and new values like this. The undef values simply means that the option is not used for the running strategy.
> set period 10m
paper = true --> true
trend_ema = undef --> undef
period = 1m --> 10m
max_slippage = undef --> undef
order_adjust_time = 30000 --> 30000
oversold_rsi_period = undef --> undef
oversold_rsi = undef --> undef
max_sell_loss_pct = 25 --> 10
reset_profit = undef --> Highly experimental!
strategy = speed --> Really not recommended to change!
sell_stop_pct = undef --> 14
buy_stop_pct = 0 --> 0
profit_stop_enable_pct = 0 --> 0
profit_stop_pct = 1 --> 1
max_slippage_pct = 5 --> 5
buy_pct = 99 --> 50
sell_pct = 99 --> 50
order_poll_time = 5000 --> 3600
markup_pct = 0 --> 0
order_type = maker --> taker
poll_trades = 24000 --> 24000
rsi_periods = 14 --> 14
avg_slippage_pct = 0.045 --> 0.045
stats = true --> true
mode = paper --> paper
min_periods = 3000 --> 3000
neutral_rate = undef --> undef
debug = undef --> undef
Be aware that different strategies have different options. Not all options are visible. That is part on purpose and part on availability.
For the zentalk program, you need to use the TCP port. When you start Zenbot, you will see the port anounced like this:
Zen master is talking to you on port 3000
To invoke the programs, a command like this is used:
./zentalk.js -c localhost:3000
The programs can also be used from a remote location like this:
./zentalk.js -c <your_remote_zentalk_ip_or_host_name:remote_port>
Be aware that you need to open the actual port on the firewall.
Basicly the zenout program delivers the same data as the zentalk program. The difference is the invocation but the the output raw JSON makes it more usable for other programs outside of Zenbot. The output goes to stdout. It is invoked from the command line with host:port as parameters.
$ ./zenout.js -c localhost:3000
However, to get something useful from the progran you need to subscribe to data
$ ./zenout.js -c localhost:3000 --sub lastTrade
With this option you will get the last trade from Zenbot. It is possible to stop the client and start it again without losing the subscription, meaning you can start it without a new subscription. If you want to get another set of data, it is wise to unsubscribe the previous subscription. This can be done in one operation. At the moment it is possible to subscribe to trades and period data. The period data makes is possible to use the data for treatment with other programs. Graphics comes to mind
(* --sub lastTrade* and * --sub period*)
./zenout.js -c localhost:3000 --unsub lastTrade --sub lastTrade
./zenout.js -c localhost:3000 --unsub lastTrade --sub period
The programs can also be used from a remote location like this:
./zenout.js -c <your_remote_zentalk_ip_or_host_name:remote_port>
Be aware that you need to open the actual port on the firewall.
As the name imply, this programs deliver messages when interesting events occur. In this version the program deliver trades with the trade specific data. A template file, ./templates/zenmailer.tpl is provided. This template file has sections for plain text and HTML. For the zenmailer.js both the plain and HTML text are used. The template delivers messages with simple formatting. The template is easy to customize for more sexy messages
Before using the program, the configuration files conf-zenmailer.js and conf-zenxmpp.js have to be edited with your preferences.
To use the programs, you need to connect to Zenbot. When you start Zenbot, you will see this message:
Zen master is talking to you on port 3000
For the zenmailer, you need to use the TCP port. To invoke the programs, a command like this is used:
./zenmailer.js -c localhost:3000
The programs can also be used from a remote location like this:
./zenmailer.js -c <your_remote_zentalk_ip_or_host_name:remote_port>
Be aware that you need to open the actual port on the firewall.
In addition to the functions available in zenmailer, the zenxmpp program can do a lot more. Most important are alarms and subscriptions.
Before using the program, the configuration file conf-zenxmpp.js needs editing with your preferences for any practical uses.
var c = module.exports = {}
c.clientId = 'YOUR-CLIENT-ID', // The XMPP ID for your zenxmpp client
c.clientPasswd = 'YOUR-PASSWORD', // Password for the same
c.clientHost = 'YOUR-CLIENT-HOST', // The XMPP host you connect through (yax.im)
c.clientPort = 5222,
// Reciver XMPP ID
c.receiver = 'RECEIVER-XMPP-ID' // Your XMPP ID for your handheld (smartphone)Your best options is to have two XMPP accounts, one for for your zenxmpp app and one for your (handheld) device. The fact that you can run several zenbot instances which use the same XMPP account, also require client tracking. This is achieved by giving each zenxmpp instance an ID, which is a random number between 10 and 99. Thus it is also possible that two instances will get the same ID, but it is easy to just restart the zenxmpp client. When starting the zenxmpp program will announce itself to your (handheld) device. At any time you can perform a who or id command to see which clients are active and get their client IDs.
To get alarms and other events you can either give them as options to the command line or send them as commands from your XMPP client device. From the command line it will look like this:
./zenxmpp -c localhost:3000 --rsi_hi 85 --rsi_lo 20 --price_hi 320 --price_lo 270
Or to set the same alarm values from your handheld:
27 rsi_hi 85
27 rsi_lo 20
27 price_hi 320
27 price_lo 27
The zenwho is a helper program to easily find which TCP ports are used by the talker.js program, which is the server program the different zental programs you want to use. The output of the program is like this:
[me@zen work]$ ./zenwho.js
Connect-URL: ws://localhost:3000 --> Selector bitstamp.BTC-USD
Connect-URL: ws://localhost:3003 --> Selector bitfinex.EOS-USD
Connect-URL: ws://localhost:3001 --> Selector bitfinex.ETH-USD
Connect-URL: ws://localhost:3002 --> Selector bitfinex.IOT-USD
[me@zen work]$
Thus if you want to monitor ETH/USD on Bitfinex, you start the client like this:
./zenxmpp.js -c localhost:3001 (--other options)
These utilities are still in an early stage of development. The same warnings given for Zentalk also applies to The Zentalker Concept in general. The listening utilities are quite safe. These only distributes data from Zenbot. The zentalk and zenxmpp programs to the contrary, are able to change options that control Zenbot. That is also the purpose of the programs. You are warned!