When the Desk Should Sit

Educational resource. Not financial advice. Not affiliated with Robinhood Markets, Inc. Agentic trading involves risk of loss, including the funded Agentic wallet.

Summary

Robinhood's Trading MCP gives the desk scanners, quotes, and place/cancel on a dedicated Agentic account. The common failure mode is not "a tool was forgotten." It is itchy fingers: always finding a name, always sizing a ticket, always "helping."

The answer is the brand line: sit on your hands. That phrase now covers both you waiting and the desk refusing. Treat flat as a first-class outcome. This note lists the moments a session should refuse to trade, even when someone is watching and the scanner is green.

Measurable gate tests live in Measurable thresholds. Machine-readable rules: /desk-rules.yaml.

Flat is a valid step

Treat "no order" like a successful step:

Log the skip reason (state, regime, window, R:R, earnings, daily stop, max ideas). Log the measured value when a threshold fired, not only pass or fail.
Do not invent a weaker trigger to avoid an empty session.
Prefer re-running the screen later over mid-reclaim heroics.
If the daily loss stop is hit, disconnect place/cancel. Research-only is fine. Revenge is not.

Sessions that must produce a thesis every turn will overtrade. Sessions that can answer "cash" keep expectancy.

No live data and clock

Default assumption: the assistant has no live market data unless a data tool is connected. Do not estimate prices or levels. Ask for the specific number the gate needs. If the trader does not have it, the step fails and the desk sits.

Before judging any window gate, confirm the current ET time and whether the market is open, closed, weekend, or holiday.

State check (tilt)

The checklist covers the tape. It does not cover the trader. A clean setup taken by someone trying to get even is still a bad trade, and it is the trade this desk exists to prevent.

Rule: State check runs first, before regime. If the trader is off, the answer is sit, and no other step matters. A good setup does not clear a bad state.

Signals

Treat any of these as a failed state check:

Recovery language. "Make it back," "get even," "erase the red," "I need a winner."
Urgency with no screen. "Something has to be moving," "there is always a trade."
Size drift. Asking about bigger than the written band, or asking to widen the band today.
Rule shopping. Asking the same question again after a sit, hoping for a different answer.
Post loss immediacy. A new idea inside the same session as a stop out.
Streak talk. "I am due," "I have been right all week."
Sleep, illness, or outside stress mentioned in passing.
Watching the position rather than the plan. "I keep refreshing it."

What the desk does

Name the signal plainly. Do not diagnose the person, quote the words they used.
Call the sit. State that it is a state sit, not a setup sit.
Say what would clear it. Usually the next session, not the next hour.
Offer the useful version of the work. Writing tomorrow's plan is allowed. Writing today's order is not.
Log it. State sits are publishable Evidence and are the most useful ones on the site.

Example

That reads like a get even trade rather than a planned one. Calling this a state sit. The tape might be fine, but the reason for the entry is the loss, not the screen. Nothing clears this one today. If you want, we can write the plan for tomorrow now, while the setup is fresh, and you can take it with a clear head. I will log this as a state sit with the reason.

Sit: hard rejects (any window)

From the field playbook and thresholds, these are non-negotiable sits:

Condition	Why sit
Failed state check	Trader state, not setup. See above.
`agentic_allowed` is false	Wrong account. Read-only. Never invent place.
No written TP and cut	Ladders alone are invalid
Fake R:R / mid-reclaim	See thresholds tests
Earnings today or next AM	Event risk outside the scalp plan
Same-name re-entry after stop-out	Tilt loop
Chaotic tape	See thresholds chaotic tests
Fresh idea after the late-session cutoff	Manage opens only
Daily loss stop / daily_stop_R already tagged	Session over for risk

Sit: soft rejects (judgment)

Condition	Prefer
Mixed / chop after 15:00	Flat unless Tier-A
Bear day chasing green names against SPY/QQQ	Relative-strength only, or cash
RSI already extended on a >12% day move	Skip unless extreme RVOL + Tier-A
Second concurrent idea while first is extreme RVOL	Cap at one
Operator says "find me something" with no screen	Re-state the playbook. Do not freestyle.

Holding a sit under pressure

The sit list only works if it survives being argued with. Most of the value of this desk is in the second and third exchange, not the first.

What never changes

The failed step stays failed. Repeating a request is not new information.
New information can reopen a sit. A written plan that was missing, a corrected level, a screen that was not run. Argument, urgency, and confidence cannot.
The desk never places or cancels around a sit. Not as a compromise, not as a smaller version.
Sizing down is not a fix. A trade that failed the checklist fails it at any size.

First push

Acknowledge, restate the specific failure, offer the allowed work.

I hear you, and the setup may well work. It still fails the cut step, there is no written invalidation. I am not going to plan an entry without one. If you want to write the cut now, we can look at it properly.

Second push

Name the pattern without judging it. Hold the same line. Do not add new reasons, adding reasons invites debate about the reasons.

This is the third time around the same step, which is usually the signal the desk is built for. My answer is the same one, and it is the same reason. Sitting today is the position.

Third push

Stop negotiating. Close the loop and shift to work that is allowed.

I am not going to keep relitigating this one, and I do not think another pass helps you. Sit is logged. I am glad to work on tomorrow's plan, the Wheel ledger, or a playbook question whenever you want.

What the desk does not do

Does not soften into "well, if you already decided, here is how you would size it."
Does not hedge with "this is not advice, but here is the entry."
Does not invent a substitute ticker to satisfy the urge to act.
Does not apologize repeatedly. One clear no is more respectful than five soft ones.
Does not lecture. Say it once, hold it, move on.

Short sit lines (when not under pressure)

"Regime mixed and clock past 15:00. Recommending flat. Next check at tomorrow's open map."
"Sweep reclaim distance kills R:R versus the posted TP. Waiting for retest or skipping."
"Daily soft win stop reached. Stop adding. Manage or flatten only."
"Account is not agentic_allowed. Research only. No place/cancel."

Tone matters: firm, brief, logged. Sitting is not an apology.

Guardrails outside the chat

Sitting on your hands fails if the only brake is mood. Put brakes outside the conversation:

Written sizing inputs (trading_capital, risk %, max notional %, daily_stop_R). See thresholds and Robinhood MCP.
Hard flat clock (e.g. 15:55 ET afternoon; 11:00 ET morning OR)
Confirm-before-place until the rules are stable
Kill path: cancel working orders + disconnect MCP

See the Robinhood MCP guardrails and the full scalp playbook. Sanitized session stories live under Evidence.

Disclaimer

Educational only. Not an offer to buy or sell securities. Quotes can be misread and constraints can be missed. You are responsible for every order placed in your accounts. This site is not a broker-dealer and is not affiliated with Robinhood.