Developer Guide
Guidance on developing and extending NautilusTrader to meet your trading needs or to contribute improvements back to the project.
The core is written in Rust. Python serves as the control plane for strategy logic, configuration, and orchestration. PyO3 bridges the two, exposing Rust functionality to Python with minimal overhead.
Environment Setup
Set up your development environment with the required tools.
Design Principles
Core invariants and design rules for the trading system.
Callback Dispatch Contract
Ownership, ordering, and progress requirements for queued actor and strategy callbacks.
Runtime Conformance Contract
Implementation boundaries and representative checks for selected design principles.
Coding Standards
Code style, formatting, and conventions for the project.
Shell Scripts
When to create a shell script and how to name, write, invoke, and test it.
Rust
Working with the Rust core and crate structure.
Python
Python development patterns and PyO3 bindings.
Testing
Testing practices, frameworks, and running the test suite.
Test Datasets
Available test datasets and how to use them.
Docs Style
Documentation standards and writing guidelines.
Markdown Style
The shared Markdown baseline adopted across repositories, kept identical to its maintained source.
Releases
Release process and release notes standards.
Security Architecture
How release artifacts are built, published, attested, and verified.
Adapters
Specifications for developing integration adapters.
Plugins
The artifact contract for independently compiled Rust cdylibs that identify themselves with a versioned manifest and exchange values across a C ABI boundary.
Data Testing Spec
A test matrix for validating adapter data functionality.
Execution Testing Spec
A test matrix for validating adapter execution functionality.
Benchmarking
Measuring Rust performance with criterion and divan.
FFI Memory Contract
Memory ownership rules for the foreign function interface.