The
Doctrine.
SentinelBuffer is governed by a single operating principle: the account must survive the trader. Every system decision is downstream of that constraint.
Execution belongs to the strategy.
Protection belongs to SentinelBuffer.
Why the state model exists.
The state machine is not a feature. It is a doctrinal handoff — a structured, progressive transfer of decision authority from the trader to the system as survival risk increases.
NORMAL
Autonomy: primaryTrader discretion is respected without interference. Buffer headroom, exposure, and floating risk are observed continuously, but the system asserts no control. Strategy operates as designed.
DEFENSIVE
Risk pressure detectedDrawdown velocity, floating loss, or exposure concentration crosses an early warning threshold. The system tightens limits and reduces permitted exposure. Trader retains decision authority within a narrower envelope.
RISK_LOCK
Autonomy reducedA critical threshold is approached. New positions are denied. Existing positions are governed under hard ceilings. Discretion is reduced to prevent breach of the lifetime drawdown rule.
SURVIVAL
Protection overrides discretionFinal protection state. Capital preservation overrides every other operational concern. The system enforces immediate de-risking and account-level protection regardless of trader intent. Survival is non-negotiable.
Authority by state.
Each operational state defines a distinct authority posture between trader and system. Below — how SentinelBuffer interprets and enforces each one.
NORMAL
— FreedomThe account is healthy. New and existing positions remain under trader control while SentinelBuffer monitors equity, drawdown, exposure, and deterioration behaviour in real time.
DEFENSIVE
— WarningRisk pressure is increasing. SentinelBuffer increases monitoring sensitivity, identifies exposure concentration, and prepares controlled enforcement before damage becomes critical.
RISK_LOCK
— RestrictionSafe operating tolerance has been breached. New positions are blocked and existing exposure is reduced through controlled sequencing, prioritising the highest account threat first.
SURVIVAL
— PreservationEmergency preservation state. New positions are absolutely blocked. Existing positions may be managed, reduced, or closed according to account threat priority, with the highest-risk exposure addressed first to prevent account failure.
Trader control is respected until inaction threatens account survival.
After that, SentinelBuffer takes control.
Governance, not limitation.
Survival enforcement is not a fixed-threshold operation. The architecture distinguishes between products that react after a breach and infrastructure that governs the conditions leading to one.
Threshold tools react after a limit is breached. They observe a fixed line — daily loss, lifetime drawdown, session cap — and intervene at the moment the line is crossed. The breach itself is what triggers the response.
SentinelBuffer monitors the conditions before the line. Equity trajectory, buffer headroom, exposure concentration, loss behaviour, and protection state are evaluated continuously, and the operating envelope contracts through escalating states — DEFENSIVE, RISK_LOCK, SURVIVAL — long before any nominal limit is approached. Intervention is graded, not binary.
This is the architectural difference. A limiter sits inside execution as a utility, waiting for a single condition to be met. SentinelBuffer sits above execution as infrastructure, governing the behavioural and equity conditions through which failure normally arrives. The strategy operates inside the framework. Protection is enforced around it.
Traditional limiters react to breaches.
SentinelBuffer governs deterioration before terminal failure occurs.
Governance, not optimisation.
Survival is non-negotiable.
No performance metric, trader objection, or operational convenience overrides the lifetime drawdown rule. The account either survives or it does not.
Discretion is bounded.
Trader autonomy is granted within a defined envelope. The envelope contracts under risk pressure and reopens only when conditions stabilise.
Protection is structural.
Survival is enforced by the architecture, not by trader memory or willpower. State transitions are deterministic and are not subject to override.
The system is silent in normal conditions.
When buffer headroom is healthy, the system observes and does not intervene. Intervention is reserved for genuine survival risk, not routine variance.
Access is granted only where governance fit is verified. Operators are reviewed against this doctrine before onboarding approval.
Controlled access — institutional operators only