Reading the Debate#

A guided tour of the Analyze page — every element explained, from the input form to the decision card.

The Analyze page at a glance#

The Analyze page has these sections, top to bottom:

Page header — title and one-line description
Input card — ticker, date, Analyze/Stop button
Status grid — four status cards (Engine, Data, LLM, Clawless)
Debate stream — session header, data summary strip, news card, phase cards, decision card
Disclaimer footer

Input card#

Ticker field#

Type any exchange-listed ticker symbol. The input converts to uppercase automatically. Maximum 6 characters. The field is disabled while a debate is streaming.

As-of date field#

The date the analysis is anchored to. The engine fetches data up to and including this date. The date picker is capped at today — future dates would produce empty data. The field is disabled while streaming.

Analyze button#

Enabled when the engine is running and no debate is in flight. Click it, or press Cmd+Enter, to start a new debate. While a debate is streaming, the Analyze button is replaced by the Stop button (see below).

Stop button#

Appears in place of the Analyze button while a debate is streaming. Click it, or press Cmd+., to close the WebSocket immediately. The engine handles the disconnect cleanly — no data corruption or error. Partial results already received remain visible in the debate stream.

Helper text#

Below the buttons, a one-line status describes the engine state:

Engine starting — sidecar handshake pending. The Python sidecar is spawning. Usually clears within 2-3 seconds.
Stub debate — analyst messages reference real data when reachable. Engine is ready; no LLM key is configured.
Streaming agent debate from sidecar — Stop to abort. A debate is in flight.
Engine failed to start: <message>. The sidecar didn't start. See troubleshooting.md.

Copy transcript button#

Appears after a debate completes (after session.complete is received). Click it to copy the full debate transcript to your clipboard in Markdown format. The transcript includes the session header, data summary, news headlines, and every agent message, organized by phase. The button label briefly shows "Copied ✓" to confirm success.

If the stream closes unexpectedly (non-1000 close code, parse error, or connection failure), a red error banner appears below the input card with the error message.

Status grid#

Four status cards give you a quick health overview.

Engine card#

Shows whether the Python sidecar is running.

State	Indicator
Starting…	Yellow dot
Running	Green dot
Error	Red dot

When the engine is in "Error" state, the Analyze button remains disabled. Check the helper text for the error message, or run bash tools/dev-smoke.sh to diagnose the backend independently.

Data card#

Shows the active data provider. Flips from "Pending…" to "yfinance · live" once the engine handshake completes and /health confirms the provider. The hint line below shows "Yahoo Finance · free · default" for yfinance.

LLM card#

Shows the LLM configuration state. Currently always shows "Not configured" because the renderer-to-engine key injection is in progress (Phase 2.1). The hint line points you to Settings → LLM Providers.

Clawless card#

Shows the Clawless gateway connection state. Currently always shows "Disconnected" — the gateway connector is Phase 6. See clawless-connector.md.

Debate stream#

The debate stream section appears once the first event arrives from the engine. It is organized in rendering order from top to bottom.

Session header#

Shows the ticker and trade date for the current session. While the stream is open, a pulsing "Streaming" badge with a green dot appears in the top-right of the header.

Data summary strip#

Appears after the data.summary event arrives (one of the first events). A compact horizontal strip shows:

Last close — closing price as of the last complete trading day before your trade date
Period change — percent change over the lookback window; green for positive, red for negative
Range — period low – period high
Avg volume — mean daily volume over the window, formatted as M (millions) or K (thousands)
A metadata line: number of sessions, data source, and the as_of date

If yfinance could not fetch data (offline, unknown ticker, future date), the summary strip is absent. Agent messages that reference prices fall back to generic language.

News card#

Appears after the news.headlines event arrives. Shows up to 5 recent Yahoo Finance headlines for the ticker. Each headline is a clickable link to the original article, with the publisher name and a relative timestamp. If no headlines were found, the card is absent.

Phase cards#

Agent messages are grouped into phase cards. Each phase card has:

A phase header with the phase name (Analysts, Researchers, Trader, Risk) and a subtitle listing the agents in that phase
A colored left border — each phase has a distinct color for quick visual scanning
Agent message articles, each showing the agent name and its message content

Phases render in order as their first message arrives: Analysts → Researchers → Trader → Risk. Within a phase, messages append as they stream in.

Agent names by phase#

Phase	Agents
Analysts	technical_analyst, fundamental_analyst, news_analyst, sentiment_analyst
Researchers	bull_researcher, bear_researcher, research_manager
Trader	trader
Risk	risk_aggressive, risk_conservative, risk_neutral, portfolio_manager

Decision card#

Appears after session.complete arrives. The card is color-coded by action:

BUY — green
SELL — red
HOLD — amber

The card shows the action, confidence percentage, and the portfolio manager's reasoning. In stub mode the reasoning includes "Stub canned debate" and may reference real price data. In live mode the reasoning is the portfolio manager's actual model output.

The Analyze page ends with:

For educational research and paper trading. TradingAgentsLab does not provide investment advice. Trading decisions and any real-money outcomes are entirely your own.

This is not decorative. The app is designed for research and paper trading only.