Creating a Scanner

This guide walks you through every step of creating a scanner, from naming it to receiving your first alert. The entire process takes about two minutes and does not require any code.

Step 1 – Name your scanner

Start by navigating to Scanners in the left sidebar and clicking New Scanner. Give your scanner a descriptive name that tells you at a glance what it does – for example, “Morning Breakout – Large Caps” or “RSI Oversold Daily.”

Tip

Good naming pays off quickly. Once you have several scanners running, a clear name saves you from clicking into each one to remember what it does.

Step 2 – Choose your instruments

Next, decide which instruments the scanner should monitor. You have two options:

Add individual instruments

Use the instrument search field to find specific tickers. Type part of a symbol or company name and select from the results. You can add as many individual instruments as you like.

Each instrument follows the Stratifyre naming format: {AssetClass}:{Source}:{Symbol}. For example, EQ:NYSE:AAPL for Apple stock or CRYPTO:BINANCE:BTCUSDT for Bitcoin. See Instruments for the full naming guide.

Add from baskets

Baskets are pre-built groups of instruments – like the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, or all Binance crypto pairs. Select a basket and every instrument in it is added to your scanner at once. This is the fastest way to set up broad market scans.

You can combine both approaches – for example, start with the S&P 500 basket and then add a handful of individual crypto pairs.

Note

Scanners can monitor over 1,000 instruments simultaneously. However, higher-frequency scans (like TICK or SECOND) across very large instrument lists may require a higher-tier plan. See Update Frequencies for details.

Step 3 – Define your rules or criteria

This is the heart of your scanner – the conditions that each instrument must satisfy to trigger an alert. You have two ways to define criteria:

Use strategy rules

If you have already built a strategy in Stratifyre, you can import its entry rules directly into your scanner. This keeps your scan logic perfectly aligned with your backtested strategy. Select From Strategy, choose the strategy, and pick which rule group to use.

Build custom criteria

Select Custom Criteria to define conditions from scratch using the visual rule builder. This is the same interface you use when building strategies:

1. Choose an indicator or data point – Pick from Stratifyre’s indicator library (RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, FIB_LEVELS, FIB_PATTERN, and more), price fields (open, high, low, close), volume, or custom expressions.
2. Select an operator – Choose how to compare: crosses above, crosses below, is greater than, is less than, enters channel, exits channel, and more.
3. Set the comparison value – Compare against a fixed number, another indicator, a price field, or a dynamic expression.

You can add multiple conditions and group them with AND/OR logic. For example:

• RSI(14) crosses below 30 AND
• Close is above SMA(50) AND
• Volume is greater than 1.5 times SMA(20, volume)

This would alert you when an instrument becomes oversold while still in an uptrend on above-average volume.

You can also build Fibonacci-based scans when those indicators are available in the active runtime. Examples:

• close > FIB_LEVELS({lookback: 120, anchorProvider: 'swing'}).extension1618
• FIB_PATTERN({pattern: 'gartley', lookback: 200}).matched == 1
• FIB_PATTERN({pattern: 'butterfly', lookback: 200}).confidence > 0.8

Step 4 – Select the update frequency

Choose how often the scanner re-evaluates your instruments. The available frequencies are:

Frequency	Best for
TICK	Ultra-fast scalping setups (millisecond updates)
SECOND	High-frequency intraday signals
MINUTE	General intraday scanning (default)
5 / 10 / 15 / 30 MINUTE	Swing-style intraday scans
HOURLY	Longer intraday or multi-day setups
DAILY	End-of-day screening

The default is MINUTE, which works well for most traders. If you are not sure which to pick, start with MINUTE and adjust later based on your needs.

For a detailed explanation of each frequency and its trade-offs, see Update Frequencies.

Step 5 – Configure cooldowns

Cooldowns prevent the same instrument from firing alerts over and over when it stays in a triggered state. You set a cooldown period – for example, 15 minutes – and after an alert fires for a given instrument, that instrument will not trigger again until the cooldown expires.

This is especially important for high-frequency scans. Without a cooldown, a TICK-frequency scanner could send hundreds of alerts per second for the same instrument.

Tip

A good starting point is a cooldown equal to two or three times your update frequency. For a 1-minute scanner, try a 3-minute cooldown. For a daily scanner, cooldowns are usually unnecessary since the scanner only fires once per day.

Step 6 – Set up alerts

Choose where you want to receive notifications when the scanner finds a match. You can enable multiple channels at once:

• Webhook – Send a JSON payload to any URL. Great for custom integrations and automation.
• Discord – Post alerts directly to a Discord channel via a webhook URL.
• Slack – Send alerts to a Slack channel through an incoming webhook.
• Email – Receive alerts in your inbox.
• SMS – Get a text message on your phone.

Each channel can be configured independently. For example, you might send all alerts to Discord but only send high-priority scanner results via SMS.

See Alerts for detailed setup instructions for each channel.

Step 7 – Save and activate

Once everything is configured:

1. Click Save to store your scanner configuration.
2. Toggle the scanner to Active to start scanning.

The scanner will begin evaluating immediately. Stratifyre automatically loads up to 30 days of historical data (called a “warmup” period) so that indicators requiring lookback periods – like a 20-day moving average – produce accurate values from the very first evaluation.

Note

Scanners are market-hours aware. If you activate a US equity scanner outside of market hours, it will wait until the next session opens before evaluating. Crypto scanners run 24/7 since crypto markets never close.

Editing and managing scanners

You can pause, edit, or delete a scanner at any time from the Scanners dashboard:

• Pause – Temporarily stop a scanner without losing its configuration. Resume it whenever you are ready.
• Edit – Change any aspect of the scanner: instruments, criteria, frequency, cooldowns, or alert channels.
• Duplicate – Copy a scanner to create a variation with different parameters.
• Delete – Permanently remove a scanner you no longer need.

Next steps

• Learn about all the Update Frequencies and how to choose the right one for your trading style.
• Set up your Alert channels so you never miss a signal.
• Explore Market Data to understand which instruments and asset classes are available for scanning.