The Sentinel dashboard is where you set your limits, manage your Schwab connection, view your subscription, and control everything about how Sentinel protects your account. Start here.
Open Dashboard →Full reference — everything below covers how Sentinel works under the hood. Most users won't need this, but it's here if you do.
Sign in with your email — or Discord, if you'd rather — and you'll land on a panel like this. Link your broker, arm Sentinel, and set every limit and alert from one place. Each card in this guide is shown next to the setting it explains.
Get started at your dashboard — sign in with just an email, or with Discord if you prefer. No Discord account is required, and there's nothing to install; Sentinel is hosted by CGTU.
Everything lives in the dashboard — linking your broker, setting limits, choosing alerts, checking status and activity. Nothing to install, and no Discord account required.
From your dashboard, click Connect Schwab or Re-authenticate and approve the secure Schwab login — click through, log in to Schwab, and authorize access. The whole process takes about a minute. You can re-run it any time from the same button if the connection lapses.
Your Schwab credentials are never stored or shared. Sentinel accesses your account through Schwab's official API using a token that you authorize.
Set your limits in the dashboard's Loss limits and Position & buying-power limits cards. Type a value and it saves immediately; leave a field blank to leave that limit off.
For example, setting 10 option contracts, a $5,000 single-position loss and a $10,000 daily loss gives you a maximum of 10 contracts per position, closes any position down more than $5,000, and triggers a full kill switch if your day is down $10,000.
Flip the Armed switch in the dashboard header. Sentinel confirms it's active and begins monitoring your positions every 2 seconds for the rest of the session.
To check in at any time, open the dashboard — the header shows net liquidation, day P/L and buying power, and the Recent activity card lists everything Sentinel has done.
Every limit is checked every 2 seconds while Sentinel is armed during market hours. When a limit is breached, Sentinel acts immediately.
Type a dollar amount into Daily loss and it's live. The dropdown beside it chooses what happens: flatten everything, lock out new trades but leave what's open, or both. It's the one setting to configure first, and it works on free Guardian.
Enter a number, or leave a field blank to leave that limit off. Every row has its own action dropdown, so you decide whether Sentinel trims back to the cap or closes the position outright.
Maximum number of option contracts allowed in any single position. If exceeded, Sentinel closes enough contracts to bring it back within the limit.
Auto-closes excess contractsMaximum number of shares allowed in any single equity position. Sentinel trims the position to your configured limit if exceeded.
Auto-closes excess sharesMaximum number of simultaneous open positions. If exceeded, Sentinel closes the smallest position(s) until you're back within the limit.
Closes smallest positions firstMaximum buying power any single position is allowed to use. Positions that exceed this are closed immediately.
Auto-closes the breaching positionMaximum total buying power used across all open positions. If exceeded, Sentinel closes the most recently opened positions until you're within the limit.
Closes most recently opened positionsMaximum unrealized loss allowed on any single position. The moment a position crosses this threshold, Sentinel closes it entirely.
Auto-closes the position immediatelyMaximum total loss allowed for the trading day. When crossed, Sentinel acts according to your chosen action (default: cancel all open orders and close every position, staying armed). Available on all tiers including free Guardian.
Kill switch — action configurable belowEvery limit has its own enforcement action, shown as a dropdown beside it in the dashboard. Run the command with no arguments to list all seven with their current settings.
Daily loss and account floor pick from three: flatten closes everything and leaves new trades allowed; lockout leaves your open positions alone but allows no new ones for the rest of the day; both does both.
Max option contracts, max shares, total buying power and per-position buying power pick from two: trim sells back down until you're under the cap, or close closes the whole position.
Max open positions picks which to close first: smallest (by buying power) or last (most recently opened — the ones that broke the cap).
Single-position loss is always a close — trimming can't undo a loss that's already been taken.
Defaults match Sentinel's original behavior — nothing changes until you chooseTo shed part of a position for a buying-power cap, Sentinel has to work out the margin per contract, which it does by dividing the position's reported buying power by its quantity. That's accurate for shares and single-leg options, but it can be wrong for spreads and other defined-risk structures, where margin isn't proportional to size.
Sentinel re-checks every cycle and trims again if the first pass didn't cure the breach, and it says so in the alert. If you want a guaranteed single-step cure, use close for those two limits.
Applies to totalbp and posbp when set to trimBlocked positions are force-closed on detection — Sentinel doesn't wait for a limit to be breached.
Add a ticker to force-close it on sight, schedule a daily no-trade window, or hit the lockout to flatten and freeze trading for the rest of the session. Each has its own confirmation.
As soon as Sentinel detects any open position in that ticker, it cancels all associated orders and force-closes the position.
Force-closes as soon as detected — cancels all ordersLifts a ticker block — click the × on its chip in the Blocked tickers row. Cannot be changed during market hours.
Blocks a ticker within a specific ET time window each day. The block is active for the entire duration of the window continuously. Persists until you remove it with the × on the window chip.
Active the entire window · persists until untimeblockedImmediately flattens all positions and blocks any new trades for the rest of the session. Clears automatically at market close. It can only be lifted after market close.
Flattens everything — clears automatically at market closeProtective orders automate bracket management on long positions. Each one has a switch and its own percentages in the Protective orders card.
Each behavior has its own percentages inline — the stop floor, the target, the trip points, the lock and step for trailing, and an optional partial scale-out. Loss-to-breakeven adds a latch selector.
Separate from the daily-loss limit: this watches your net liquidation value rather than the day's P/L, so it catches drawdown that carries across sessions. Its action dropdown offers the same three choices as daily loss.
Places an automatic stop order on each long position. If the position moves against you to the stop price, it's closed automatically.
Places an automatic limit order to close a position when it hits your profit target in dollars.
Once a position reaches your configured profit target, Sentinel automatically moves your stop to breakeven. Your entry price becomes your floor.
Requires a profit target to be setOnce a position falls 5% below your cost, Sentinel replaces the profit target with a sell-at-cost limit. If the position recovers to your basis, you exit flat — free up the capital and find a better trade. It never reverts to the profit target, and the order is continually re-placed if it gets cancelled.
Controls the price of that breakeven exit if you add to the position later.
continuous (default) re-prices the exit from your current average cost every cycle, so it follows your real blended basis — average down and the exit comes down with you.
once pins the exit to the cost basis from the moment it armed, so adding later doesn't move your original breakeven target.
Either way the latch itself is permanent for the life of the position — it survives a cancelled bracket, a cleared order and a restart — and clears when the position closes.
Watches your day's profit, records the high-water mark, and fires when you give back more than your trigger. Tune it with arm (the profit level where it starts watching), trail (the give-back that trips it, in dollars or a percent of the peak), and action.
Three actions: flatten closes everything and locks out for the day; lock leaves open positions running and only blocks new ones; exit switches to per-position mode — every position trails its own peak profit, and only the one that gave back is closed, with no lockout.
In exit mode your arm and trail values apply per position rather than to whole-day P/L, so size them accordingly.
Locks in gains once the day (or a position) gives back your triggerSentinel protects your account whether or not you're watching. These settings only control where it tells you about it — turn every channel off and protection carries on silently.
Switch on any combination of the dashboard feed, push notifications to your phone or desktop, email, and Discord DMs. Each one is independent.
Every action Sentinel takes is written to your activity log and shown in the Recent activity card at the bottom of the dashboard. The log always records everything regardless of your settings — this switch only controls what the feed displays.
Standard browser push — no app to install, no cost, and it reaches you with the dashboard closed. Switch it on and your browser asks permission; accept and that device is registered. You can register several devices (phone and laptop), and there's a Test link to confirm it works.
On iPhone there's one extra step: Safari only allows notifications for web apps added to the home screen. Open cgtu.us in Safari, tap Share → Add to Home Screen, then open Sentinel from that icon and switch push on. Android and desktop work immediately.
Enter an address, press Save, then switch Email on. Alerts arrive batched into one message with a link back to your dashboard.
The Format selector controls how they're written. Auto sends a full email normally, and switches to a short one-line-per-alert form if the address looks like a carrier phone gateway. Full email and Short (text) force one or the other.
If your carrier still runs an email-to-SMS gateway you can enter that address (for example [email protected]) and set Format to Short, and alerts will arrive as text messages, trimmed to fit one 160-character message.
Be aware most of these gateways are gone. AT&T shut theirs down in June 2025 and T-Mobile stopped delivering in late 2024 — and it fails silently, so messages simply never arrive. Verizon's still works but is degraded and retires in March 2027. If you want reliable alerts on your phone, use push instead — it's free and it works everywhere.
If you signed in with Discord, the Sentinel bot can DM you. Entirely optional — email-only accounts simply won't see this option enabled.
Opens a grid of alert categories against your four channels, so each channel gets only what you want from it. The categories are:
Kill switch — daily-loss kill, account floor, day lockout. Position closed — force-closed by a limit, a block or a trailing exit. Re-auth / paused — monitoring paused, broker reconnect needed. Those three are the key ones.
Trims & scale-outs — partial closes that leave the position open. Protective orders — brackets placed, moved or cancelled (the chattiest). Status snapshots — account summaries. Everything else — arm/disarm and housekeeping.
Defaults: the dashboard feed and Discord get everything; push and email get the three key categories only, so your phone isn't buzzing for every bracket placement. Two presets — everything and key alerts only — set all channels at once.
Sends an account summary — armed state, day P/L against your limit, account value and your open positions — through whichever channels have Status snapshots enabled. The same snapshot is what a follow-up after a close sends.
When switched on, any event where Sentinel moves a position — a force-close, a trim, a trailing exit, a kill switch — is followed a few seconds later by a status snapshot, so you can see where the account stands afterwards.
The short delay is deliberate: a position the broker just closed can linger in the account for a moment, and a snapshot taken instantly would show stale holdings. Snapshots are also capped at one per minute, so a busy session doesn't turn into a stream.
Schwab requires a fresh login every 7 days. Sentinel reminds you before it lapses, and reconnecting takes one click.
The Reconnect button runs the whole Schwab login in your browser — there's no link to copy and no code to paste back. Disconnecting is deliberately harder, and unavailable while the market is open.
Schwab's authorization lasts 7 days. Sentinel warns you as it approaches expiry and sends a reminder before the week reopens, always pointing at the dashboard's Reconnect button. If the connection does lapse, monitoring pauses and stays paused until you reconnect — Sentinel will tell you, but it can't protect an account it can't see.
Deletes Sentinel's stored access and stops all monitoring immediately, including any protective orders it was maintaining. Your positions are untouched — but nothing will be guarding them. You can reconnect any time by authorizing again.
Blocked while the market is open. Unlinking mid-session would drop your protection at the worst possible moment, so it's only available after the close (16:00 ET). This applies in both the dashboard and Discord, regardless of whether Sentinel is armed.
Market hours: unavailable until the closeHelp opens this guide. Sign out ends your dashboard session; it has no effect on your limits, your broker link, or whether Sentinel is armed — protection keeps running while you're signed out.
Sentinel acts with market orders. Speed matters more than price when a limit is breached.
Sentinel sends a market order to close enough contracts or shares to bring the position within your limit. The rest stays open.
Partial close — position remainsThe entire position is closed with a market order. All associated orders for that position are cancelled first.
Full close — position removedFor max open positions, Sentinel closes the smallest positions first by default, or the most recently opened if you set that limit's action to last. For total buying power it closes the position that pushed you over the cap — or trims part of it if you've chosen trim.
Every one of these behaviors is configurable. See Choose what each limit does when it trips under Limits — you can make any size or buying-power limit trim back to the cap instead of closing, and choose whether a daily-loss or account-floor breach flattens, locks out new trades, or both.
Selective close — smallest or most recent firstAs soon as Sentinel detects a position in a blocked ticker, all orders for that ticker are cancelled and the position is closed with a market order.
Orders cancelled then position closedFor the entire duration of the window, Sentinel continuously cancels orders and closes any position in the blocked ticker. Repeats daily until removed.
Active entire window — repeats daily until removedEvery open order across your entire account is cancelled. Then every open position is closed with market orders. The day is done.
Kill switch — full account flattenSentinel enforces stricter rules during market hours to prevent you from undermining your own protection in the heat of a trade.
You don't need any of this. Everything Sentinel does is available in the dashboard, and no Discord account is required to sign up or to be notified. These commands exist for people who'd rather work from chat — they do the same things, on the same account, and the two stay in sync.
options, shares, positions, totalbp, posbp, singleloss, dailyloss. Set to 0 to disable. e.g. !guard set options 10dailyloss/floor: flatten|lockout|both. options/shares/totalbp/posbp: trim|close. positions: smallest|last. Shortcut: !guard set action all trimhardstop, target, be20, protect50, lossbe. e.g. !guard protect hardstop on, !guard protect target 100continuous re-prices the breakeven exit from your current average cost; once pins it to the basis from when it armed. Either way the order is re-placed if cancelled.!guard set action floor flatten|lockout|both.arm <$|always>, trail <$ or N%>, action flatten|lock|exit — where exit is per-position mode, closing only the position that gave back.