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Educational use only — not investment advice. Verify every number against your own broker before trading.

Don’t be put off by the number of files. You do not read this guide. You use one page a day and look up the rest only when you need it — like a pilot’s checklist vs. the aircraft manual behind it.

The only thing you do every day

Open cheatsheet.md and run it top to bottom (~10 min):

① read the market → ② matrix gives you a strategy → ③ size it → ④ run the checklist → trade, or stand down.

That’s it. That one page is the system. Everything else exists to support it.

Before your first trade — do this once (~1 hour)

  1. 04-account-and-approval.md — find out what your broker actually lets you trade. (This filters the whole guide.)
  2. 03-risk-and-sizing.md — write down your dollar risk-per-trade limit. This single number matters more than any strategy.
  3. ref-greeks-iv-mechanics.md — skim it so the terms (delta, IV Rank, theta…) aren’t foreign.
  4. cheatsheet.md — read it once so the daily flow makes sense.

Done. You’re ready to run the loop.

Everything else = look up only when you need it

You will never sit and read these. You open one only when the cheatsheet points you to it:

When you… Open
…want the details of a strategy the matrix named the matching strat-*.md (bullish / bearish / neutral-income / volatility / hedging)
…face a specific situation (earnings, FOMC, a gap, a vol spike) 06-playbooks.md
…want to see a strategy’s payoff shape ref-payoff-diagrams.md
…need to manage / roll / adjust an open trade ref-management-adjustments.md
…forget a term glossary.md
…want the full map of all files README.md

The other files (opportunity selection, scorecard, portfolio Greeks, regime transitions, etc.) are upgrades to add once the daily loop feels natural — ignore them until then.

The mental model

1 page is the product. The other ~20 files are the library behind it — there so the detail is correct and ready when you need it, not so you read them.

Start with the cheatsheet tomorrow morning. Look things up as questions come up. That’s the whole way to use this.