---
title: 'Trading Quickstart'
description: Configure trading and place your first order
---

## Purpose
Bring up `TradingClient`, authenticate, and submit a live Kalshi order in minutes.

## Prerequisites
- `pip install "neural-sdk[trading]"` (or the equivalent `uv add` command)
- Kalshi API key ID + RSA private key loaded into environment variables as shown below

## Step 1 – Install dependencies

```bash
pip install neural-sdk
pip install "neural-sdk[trading]"
```

## Step 2 – Load credentials

```bash
# secrets/.env
KALSHI_API_KEY_ID=your_api_key_id
KALSHI_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64=base64_of_pem   # or
KALSHI_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH=secrets/kalshi_private_key.pem
KALSHI_ENV=prod
```

```bash
export $(grep -v '^#' secrets/.env | xargs)
```

## Step 3 – Place an order

```python
from neural.trading import TradingClient

client = TradingClient()  # reads env vars
order = client.exchange.place_order(
    ticker="EXAMPLE",  # replace with a real ticker
    side="yes",
    count=100,
    price=55,
)
print(order)
```

Expect a JSON response containing the Kalshi order ID and status. If you receive a 401, re-check the credential file.

## Optional – Streaming & FIX
- Market data: `neural.trading.KalshiWebSocketClient`, `neural.trading.rest_streaming.RESTStreamingClient`
- Low-latency execution: `neural.trading.KalshiFIXClient` + `FIXStreamingClient`

Consult `trading/market-data` and `trading/fix` for setup details.

## Next
- Configure long-running execution: `trading/trading-client`
- Simulate fills before going live: `trading/paper-trading`
- Run the end-to-end workflow: `workflows/build-first-bot`
