A rehearsal runs your idea on live prices, the same prices your account sees, and places nothing. No orders, no risk, and your broker is not involved in a single trade. Wildflower records every decision the idea makes: when it would have entered, when it would have passed, and why.
Which account it follows
A rehearsal runs on a connected broker account in watch mode. Watch mode is a switch on the account page: Turn watch mode on starts a rehearsal, and Turn watch mode off ends it. The Lab lists your accounts and shows which ones are rehearsing right now.
The strategy a rehearsal runs is the one given to that account. Putting a strategy on an account is its own step, on the account page.
The rehearsal runs through the Wildflower agent on your computer, on your broker's live prices, just like live trading. Connecting a broker account needs the Bot plan.
Watch mode is not available on a demo account.
What gets recorded
A diary, newest first: the time, what the idea did, and the reason in plain English. Every entry has a grey Rehearsal label. Next to it is a running count of days, decisions, entries and skips.
It runs the same way as live
A rehearsal runs the same decision-making code as your backtests and your live trading, not a copy of it. The only difference is that the step that sends orders is switched off.
Rehearsal money and live money never mix
Money figures from a rehearsal carry the Rehearsal label and the words "no order was placed". They are never added to, or netted against, money from your live account. The two can sit on the same screen, but never in the same total.
How it differs from a backtest
A backtest replays past prices and can cover a year in minutes. A rehearsal runs at the speed of the market, on prices arriving now. It shows what the idea does in conditions no past stretch of dates contains. Neither one tells you what your account would have been paid.
What can go wrong
Watch mode belongs to the account, not the strategy. Turning it off sets that account back to placing real orders. The account page asks before it turns watch mode off, and says which state the account is in.