Step 5: Fire a test alert, read the trace, set the guardrails

Hookmode is a Windows desktop application that receives TradingView webhook alerts and places the trades in MetaTrader 5 on the trader’s own computer. It is not an Expert Advisor and does not need a VPS.

Before you start: You need the webhook and the rule from step 4. Use an account you are prepared to test carefully. No need to wait for the market. The manual trigger runs the same pipeline.

1. 1.

   Open the webhook menu and click Trigger buy. The webhook needs “Allow manual trigger” turned on. Then confirm. A toast appears with View trace.

2. 2.

   The trace page (/trades/<id>/trace) lists webhook_received → rules_matched → trades_matched → trade_dispatched → trade_opened, each with a +Nms delta. If it went wrong, the failing event says why: the device is offline, the stop loss or a provided take profit distance is not greater than zero, the device cannot read the saved password.

   

3. 3.

   Close it: Close buy trades from the same menu. Watch trade_closed appear in the trace.

4. 4.

   Now the guardrails. On the account page open the guardrails dialog: turn the daily loss limit on and set the value. The day resets at midnight in your broker’s server time, read from your terminal. On the rule card you see the drawdown budget (the webhook’s max drawdown × the rule’s risk factor), plus a Blocked badge and a Reset drawdown button when the budget is breached. Max open positions sits on the rule too. Pause anything with its switch.

   

   How the limits are computed: the prop-firm guardrails guide

5. 5.

   Last, the phone. In Settings → Telegram click Connect Telegram. A code appears, valid for 10 minutes. Open the t.me link, or send /connect <code> to the bot. Nine notification switches, all on by default; the weekly summary arrives Monday 08:00 in your workspace time zone.