Before a strategy places its first order, it reads recent price history. That way, the things it measures, such as averages, ranges and the levels it watches, are already settled instead of starting from nothing. That reading is the warmup.
The default is 30 days
Every account starts on 30 days, and most stay there. Thirty days is enough for everything the engine tracks to be fully wound up, and it is a depth your broker reliably serves.
Changing it
Open Bot settings, then Warmup. The number applies to every account you have connected, and a strategy you wrote can carry its own.
Your live trading and your backtests use the same number, so what you test is what you trade.
Longer or shorter
- Shorter starts faster and gives every decision less history to lean on. Choose it when your strategy genuinely only looks at recent days, not to get going sooner.
- Longer is capped at 30 days. Your broker serves history per contract, and futures contracts roll every few months, so past roughly a month back there is no guarantee the data is there to load. We would rather tell you that on this page than let you set a number and have your account decline to start on the morning it matters.
What changing it does not do
It does not change what your strategy looks for or how it sizes a trade. It changes only how much history is behind the first decisions after a start.