Paper, testnet and mainnet

Every strategy and every Guard goes through the same three steps, in order. Zunder holds itself to this: backtest, paper, testnet, live.

	Paper	Testnet	Mainnet
Prices	Hyperliquid mainnet, real	Hyperliquid testnet	Hyperliquid mainnet
Orders sent	none	to api.hyperliquid-testnet.xyz	to api.hyperliquid.xyz
Money	none	test USDC, no value	real
Stops rest on the venue	no (simulated)	yes	yes
How you get there	the default	--network testnet	type the network, confirm the account

Paper

Paper mode reads real prices and judges every order exactly as it would on mainnet, then records the decision instead of sending it.

Example. Your bot buys ETH. Guard answers “resized to 0.41 ETH, rule: max loss at the stop”, writes it to the journal and the event log, and sends nothing.

Planned

Guard’s paper mode is planned. Zunder’s own paper books are different and run today: they replay the backtest on live candles (docs/paper.md).

Testnet

Testnet is a separate Hyperliquid network with test money. Orders are real orders there: stops rest on the venue and fire.

This is where Zunder runs today. Its runner (zunder-runner testnet) trades one book on a testnet account, with the risk engine, the journal, stops on the venue and the kill switch (docs/testnet.md).

Things that differ from mainnet (docs/testnet.md, “What differs between the networks”):

• Signatures. Orders are signed for one network. A testnet signature is rejected on mainnet and the reverse: the “phantom agent” carries source "b" on testnet and "a" on mainnet.
• API wallets, asset ids and nonces are per network. An API wallet approved on testnet does not exist on mainnet.
• Prices on testnet are not mainnet’s.

Mainnet

Mainnet trades real money. Guard never gets there by itself.

Zunder’s own code has a mainnet path, built and reviewed, never run, and switched off. It refuses to start unless every one of these holds at once (docs/testnet.md, “The guards, all at once”):

• the command names mainnet, and the config says network = "mainnet" (there is no default network);
• allow_mainnet = true, an equity cap, the account and the API wallet in the config;
• a confirmation that names the traded account, read at every start, before the key is read;
• the key arrives on standard input only, and its address must be the configured API wallet;
• the risk journal was started for mainnet and this account.

Planned

Guard follows the same idea with fewer steps:

zunder-guard start --network mainnet --confirm-account 0xYourAccountAddress

Guard refuses mainnet unless you type the network and the account on the command line (or in the service file you write). A config file alone never moves Guard to mainnet. A testnet journal never opens on mainnet.

Changing mode

Each mode has its own journal. Moving from testnet to mainnet starts a new journal with a new peak. Your limits carry over in the config; the risk state does not.