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Strategy Pivot Designer

Free

Revitalize trading strategies with innovative pivot proposals.

by tradermonty2.6k stars on tradermonty/claude-trading-skills
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Updated Aug 10, 2026
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Free · Opens the source repo

What Strategy Pivot Designer does

The Strategy Pivot Designer is a specialized tool for traders and developers focused on optimizing trading strategies. It identifies stagnation in backtest iterations, which often occurs when a strategy reaches a local optimum and fails to improve further. This skill provides a structured approach to break out of these stagnation points by generating new strategy architectures rather than merely adjusting existing parameters. By doing so, it helps users explore fundamentally different approaches to the same market hypothesis, potentially leading to improved performance.

This skill operates as part of the Edge pipeline, integrating seamlessly with other components like hint extractors and strategy designers. When users notice that their backtest scores have plateaued, or when they suspect overfitting or excessive transaction costs, the Strategy Pivot Designer can be employed to analyze the iteration history and propose new strategy drafts. The output includes both research-oriented drafts and export-ready proposals, making it versatile for both exploratory and production environments.

The workflow begins by accumulating evaluation results from backtests, followed by running stagnation detection to identify issues such as overfitting or drawdown risks. If stagnation is detected, the skill generates pivot proposals using techniques like assumption inversion and archetype switching. Users can then review these proposals, which are ranked based on quality and novelty, ensuring that the most promising ideas are prioritized for further development. This feedback loop allows for continuous improvement of trading strategies, ensuring that users can adapt to changing market conditions effectively.

When to use it

Use this tool when backtest results plateau or show signs of overfitting, and when you need to explore new strategy architectures.

When not to use it

This skill may not be suitable for initial strategy development or when there are no signs of stagnation in the backtest results.

What you can build with it

Detecting Stagnation in Backtests

When backtest scores plateau, use this skill to analyze your iteration history and identify stagnation triggers.

Generating New Strategy Proposals

After detecting stagnation, generate structurally different strategy proposals to explore new avenues for improvement.

Integrating with Edge Pipeline

Utilize the output from this skill to feed into the Edge pipeline for continuous strategy refinement and evaluation.

How to install Strategy Pivot Designer

View source

1. Install with the skills CLI

npx skills add tradermonty/claude-trading-skills/strategy-pivot-designer --agent claude-code

2. Or install it manually

Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.

Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs

Inside SKILL.md

Written by tradermonty

Strategy Pivot Designer

Overview

Detect when a strategy's backtest iteration loop has stalled and propose structurally different strategy architectures. This skill acts as the feedback loop for the Edge pipeline (hint-extractor -> concept-synthesizer -> strategy-designer -> candidate-agent), breaking out of local optima by redesigning the strategy's skeleton rather than tweaking parameters.

When to Use

  • Backtest scores have plateaued despite multiple refinement iterations.
  • A strategy shows signs of overfitting (high in-sample, low robustness).
  • Transaction costs defeat the strategy's thin edge.
  • Tail risk or drawdown exceeds acceptable thresholds.
  • You want to explore fundamentally different strategy architectures for the same market hypothesis.

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.9+
  • PyYAML
  • Iteration history JSON (accumulated backtest-expert evaluations)
  • Source strategy draft YAML (from edge-strategy-designer)

Output

  • pivot_drafts/research_only/*.yaml — strategy_draft compatible YAML proposals
  • pivot_drafts/exportable/*.yaml — export-ready drafts + ticket YAML for candidate-agent
  • pivot_report_*.md — human-readable pivot analysis
  • pivot_manifest_*.json — metadata for all generated files
  • pivot_diagnosis_*.json — stagnation detection results

Workflow

  1. Accumulate backtest evaluation results into an iteration history file using --append-eval.
  2. Run stagnation detection on the history to identify triggers (plateau, overfitting, cost defeat, tail risk).
  3. If stagnation detected, generate pivot proposals using three techniques: assumption inversion, archetype switch, objective reframe.
  4. Review ranked proposals (scored by quality potential + novelty).
  5. For exportable proposals, ticket YAML is ready for edge-candidate-agent pipeline.
  6. For research_only proposals, manual strategy design needed before pipeline integration.
  7. Feed the selected pivot draft back into backtest-expert for the next iteration cycle.

Quick Commands

Append a backtest evaluation to history (creates history if new):

python3 skills/strategy-pivot-designer/scripts/detect_stagnation.py \
  --append-eval reports/backtest_eval_2026-02-10_120000.json \
  --history reports/iteration_history.json \
  --strategy-id draft_edge_concept_breakout_behavior_riskon_core \
  --changes "Widened stop_loss from 5% to 7%"

Detect stagnation:

python3 skills/strategy-pivot-designer/scripts/detect_stagnation.py \
  --history reports/iteration_history.json \
  --output-dir reports/

Generate pivot proposals:

python3 skills/strategy-pivot-designer/scripts/generate_pivots.py \
  --diagnosis reports/pivot_diagnosis_*.json \
  --strategy reports/edge_strategy_drafts/draft_*.yaml \
  --max-pivots 3 \
  --output-dir reports/

Resources

  • skills/strategy-pivot-designer/scripts/detect_stagnation.py
  • skills/strategy-pivot-designer/scripts/generate_pivots.py
  • references/stagnation_triggers.md
  • references/strategy_archetypes.md
  • references/pivot_techniques.md
  • references/pivot_proposal_schema.md
  • skills/backtest-expert/scripts/evaluate_backtest.py
  • skills/edge-strategy-designer/scripts/design_strategy_drafts.py

Frequently asked questions about Strategy Pivot Designer

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