> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.shekel.xyz/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What is Shekel?

> AI-powered crypto trading agents on Hyperliquid

Shekel lets you deploy an AI trading agent that monitors the crypto market and executes trades on your behalf on [Hyperliquid](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz) — the highest-performance decentralized perpetuals exchange.

You write a plain-English strategy. The agent reads live market data, runs it through an AI model of your choice, and places trades automatically. Launching an agent **creates a dedicated Hyperliquid account for it** — you fund that account, and you can withdraw from it or export its private key at any time. You stay in control: set risk limits, choose which tokens to trade, and pause or stop at any time.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Launch Your First Agent" icon="rocket" href="/getting-started">
    Set up and deploy your agent in under 10 minutes.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Write a Great Strategy" icon="pen-line" href="/agent/strategy">
    The strategy prompt is everything. Learn what works.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Talk to Your Agent" icon="message-circle" href="/chat/overview">
    Your agent has live access to your portfolio, performance, and history — ask it anything.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Backtest First" icon="chart-line" href="/backtesting/overview">
    Simulate any strategy against historical data before going live.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How It Works

<Steps>
  <Step title="You write the strategy">
    A plain-English prompt describes how you want the agent to think — what signals to weight, how aggressive to be, which market conditions to avoid.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The agent reads live data">
    Before every decision, the agent assembles a full market context: prices, order book depth, funding rates, technical indicators, sentiment, whale flows, and any custom data you provide.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The AI decides">
    The context is passed to your chosen AI model (Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, or others). The model reasons through your strategy and outputs a structured decision: LONG, SHORT, CLOSE, or WAIT — with full reasoning.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The trade executes">
    If the decision is actionable, Shekel places the order on your agent's Hyperliquid account using that agent's **trade-only** trading key — it can open and close positions, but cannot withdraw.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Key Features

* **AI fund manager** — multiple frontier models available; swap at any time
* **Agent chat** — your agent has full context and can answer questions, analyze your performance, and propose strategy changes
* **Backtest engine** — simulate any strategy against historical Hyperliquid data, with LLM-driven decision making
* **Custom data endpoints** — inject any external signal, on-chain metric, or proprietary indicator into your agent's context
* **SHEKEL token** — stake SHEKEL on Base to earn passive daily credits
* **Your account, your keys** — each agent trades from its own Hyperliquid account, created at launch; withdraw to any Arbitrum address at any time, or export the account's private key to take sole control of it

<Note>
  All AI inference runs through [Venice AI](https://venice.ai), providing private, uncensored model access. Your strategy, prompts, and trade data are never used to train AI models.
</Note>