An event market arbitrage bot needs a recovery playbook because an intended combination can fail in several different ways. A rejected order with confirmed zero execution is not the same as an order that filled partially. A missing response is not the same as a rejection. A contract mismatch discovered after entry is different again. Treating all of these as a generic failed trade encourages the bot to repeat an action before it understands the account it is trying to repair.
A useful incident process first contains new activity, then establishes the actual exposure, compares permitted responses and reconciles the result. The fictional cases below assume compatible one-dollar binary legs where stated. They show how to close an operational incident without hiding residual positions or calling a recovered loss a successful execution of the original plan.
Event Market Arbitrage Bot Incident Response Starts With Classification
Classify the incident by what is known, not by the message that is easiest to display. A known rejection means authoritative records establish that the particular request did not create the intended order or fill. A partial execution means some quantity is confirmed while another portion remains unfilled or unresolved. An unknown submission means the local system lacks sufficient evidence to determine what the venue accepted.
Add a separate category for an invalidated premise. A rule comparison may turn out to be wrong, a contract clarification may require review or a funding assumption may fail. In these cases, repeating the original execution plan can be inappropriate even if the trading interface is healthy. The system needs to revisit the recommendation and permission, not merely repair a transport error.
The incident record should identify the affected case, leg identifiers, last reconciled state and current uncertainty. It should also record what new activity has been disabled. A problem in one account may require pausing all exposure-increasing instructions there, while a narrow contract interpretation issue may affect only cases using that mapping. The scope should follow the missing evidence and shared dependencies.
The older Kalshi versus Polymarket arbitrage bot discussion offers context for cross-venue coordination. The practical rule is that the incident label should help determine the next evidence-gathering step. If it does not distinguish what is confirmed from what remains possible, it is too vague to support recovery.
Contain the Case Without Erasing Its History
Containment means stopping new actions that could enlarge the unresolved exposure. It does not necessarily mean submitting an immediate opposite trade. First disable new candidate authorizations in the affected scope and inspect existing commitments. Preserve the original recommendation, price limits and permissions. Those records explain what the bot was trying to do and which assumptions no longer support its next action.
Outstanding orders need a deliberate response under the venue's actual mechanics. A cancellation request may be appropriate, but it remains a request until its outcome is established. Keep the possible remaining quantity in the exposure model. Do not clear a reservation just because the local strategy has stopped considering the order useful.
Record the incident timeline from authoritative observations where possible. Include submission times, responses, fills, cancellation requests and account snapshots. Use receipt times as well as source times when updates arrive late. The timeline should make uncertainty visible instead of arranging events into an artificially neat order based only on when the local program processed them.
Containment should also prevent automatic cleanup from destroying diagnostic evidence. A restarted worker should not replace unresolved case identifiers with new ones or mark old tasks complete because they exceed a time limit. The history is needed to determine whether a later fill belongs to the original attempt and whether a proposed recovery action would duplicate an already accepted instruction.
A Known Rejection Can Still Leave Another Leg Live
In the first fictional case, the bot plans two 300-unit orders. The first request is rejected, and the second has not yet been submitted. If authoritative records confirm zero execution and no live order, the case can release its unused reservation and stop. The original opportunity should still be reevaluated before any new attempt because prices, fees or account conditions may have changed.
Now change the sequence: the first request is rejected after the second order has already been accepted. The case is not empty. The accepted second leg may be resting or filled, and its status must be resolved. A rejection on one side does not cancel the other side automatically unless a verified venue mechanism explicitly provides that behavior for the actual transaction, which should never be assumed across separate services.
Read the reason for rejection in the context of the current interface. A minimum-size problem, invalid price increment, account permission issue and restricted trading mode require different responses. Some can be corrected only by changing the instruction; others require restoring account conditions or waiting for the venue to permit the intended activity. Blindly repeating the same invalid order is not recovery.
Polymarket's matching-engine documentation distinguishes restart and restricted trading modes. That is a useful example of why an online service may still reject a particular action. The bot must inspect the actual mode and supported behavior rather than interpreting any successful connection as permission to resume ordinary matching.
Partial Execution Requires a New Exposure Statement
In the second fictional case, the bot intends 200 A Yes units and 200 compatible B No units. A fills completely at $0.48, costing $96. B fills only 150 units at $0.49, costing $73.50. The account has spent $169.50 before charges. It owns 150 complete one-for-one pairs and 50 unmatched A units. That exposure statement replaces the original assumption of 200 complete pairs.
The paired portion costs $145.50 before charges and has a modeled $150 payout under the example's ordinary assumptions. The unmatched 50 A units cost $24 and can pay $50 or zero. Their outcome exposure is much larger than the small spread expected from the complete combination. Reporting only the average combined entry price would hide the incomplete quantity that now matters most.
Before choosing a response, establish whether the remaining B order can still fill. If it is open or cancellation remains uncertain, another B fill may reduce the unmatched quantity. A recovery action based on the earlier 50-unit gap could then overcorrect. The incident process needs a sufficiently reconciled state or a policy that explicitly accounts for the remaining uncertainty.
The event contract arbitrage bot guide focuses on paired reservations and execution states. The incident view adds an operator-facing requirement: state what the account owns now, what can still change and which decisions are permitted. A recovery screen should make these facts understandable without asking the operator to infer them from several unrelated order messages.
Event Market Arbitrage Bot Recovery Costs Need Alternatives
Suppose the remaining 50 B units can now be purchased at $0.58. Completing them costs another $29, bringing purchase cost to $198.50. If total charges for this completion path are assumed to be $4, the all-in cost is $202.50 against a modeled $200 payout. The recovery would produce a $2.50 loss under the stated assumptions. Completing the original target is therefore not equivalent to preserving the original economics.
Consider another permitted response after the B remainder is confirmed no longer open. Selling the 50 unmatched A units at an executable bid of $0.45 returns $22.50. The remaining 150 complete pairs pay $150 under the model. Total proceeds are $172.50 against the $169.50 purchase amount, leaving $3 before charges. If total charges for this separate recovery path are $4, the result is a $1 loss.
These figures are hypothetical alternatives, not venue quotes or fee estimates. They show why the recovery decision should compare complete paths. The second path has the smaller modeled loss in this example, but actual quantity availability, account restrictions and unresolved orders could change the comparison. The bot should choose only among actions authorized by its current recovery policy.
The policy may also permit a bounded residual position for human review. If so, document the maximum exposure, owner and next decision time. Leaving a position unpaired without that explicit disposition is not a completed recovery. The incident can be operationally stabilized while financial risk remains, but the record must say so plainly.
Unknown Submission Is an Evidence Problem First
In the third fictional case, a request for 100 units times out before the bot receives a response. The account may have no order, a resting order, a partial fill or a completed fill. The local timeout does not distinguish those states. Retain the original attempt identity and its reservation while inspecting supported order, trade and position records.
Avoid inferring nonexecution from one missing notification. A private stream may have dropped an update while an account query would show the fill. Conversely, a transient display may not establish final account state. Use the venue's documented sources of truth and preserve which observations support the conclusion. If evidence remains inconsistent, the case remains uncertain even when the operator would prefer a clean status.
A second request with a new identity is a new potential commitment unless the actual interface provides a verified idempotent mechanism that applies to the request. Do not assume the same side and quantity make it a harmless retry. The first order could later appear and cause the account to own twice the intended amount. Recovery should resolve the old attempt before authorizing an additional independent one.
The older prediction market bot guide provides a broader view of observation and account responsibilities. In an incident, the central question is narrow: what evidence proves whether this specific attempt changed the account? The answer determines whether to release capacity, cancel a live order or incorporate fills into the current exposure statement.
A Restart Must Rebuild From Durable Commitments
A process restart can occur during any of these cases. The new process should load unresolved attempts, reservations and case ownership before accepting new recommendations. A fresh memory state does not imply that the venue has no orders. The accounts continue to exist while the local program is stopped, and their positions may have changed during the interruption.
Reconcile open orders and recent fills using the required time range and identifiers. Deduplicate records that were already processed before the restart. If the local journal ends before a submitted request, use the durable attempt record and account evidence to investigate the gap. The system should not guess that an incomplete local write means the external action never happened.
Only restore trading permissions after the affected accounts and contract mappings satisfy the restart conditions. A service may accept cancellation requests before it accepts the type of new order the strategy needs. A public feed may be current while private records remain delayed. The incident process should restore specific capabilities based on evidence instead of switching the entire system from red to green at once.
The related event contract bot architecture provides the underlying state boundaries. The recovery playbook turns those boundaries into a practical sequence for the operator: identify unresolved commitments, establish quantities, confirm permissions and then consider new actions. Skipping directly to the last step can reproduce the incident with a larger account exposure.
Recheck the Contract Premise When the Failure Is Semantic
Not every incident begins with a technical error. A reviewer may discover that one contract uses an initial release while the other uses a revision, or that exceptional outcomes differ. In that case, the two positions may never have formed the payoff relationship the bot assumed. A perfect execution record does not repair the semantic mistake.
Disable new cases using the affected mapping and identify existing exposures that depend on it. Recalculate their payouts under the corrected interpretation. The result may include states where both positions lose or both win. These are directional or basis exposures that need their own risk decision. Do not continue to label them complete arbitrage simply because the quantities match.
Preserve the old mapping and the reason it was replaced. This allows the review to determine whether the error came from incomplete rule extraction, an unsupported inference or a later clarification. It also helps identify which historical cases were evaluated under the same premise. Correcting only the current case can leave the same flawed relationship active elsewhere in the system.
The event contract automation guide explains how unfamiliar rule questions can receive accountable review. Incident handling should use that process rather than ask an automated summary to invent a final interpretation. The bot can gather evidence and quantify possible outcomes while a qualified reviewer resolves the contract question within the actual venue's rules.
Event Market Arbitrage Bot Incident Closure Needs Evidence
Closing an incident requires more than a successful recovery order response. Confirm the final executed quantities, open-order state, charges and remaining positions. Compare the account with the documented disposition: fully paired, reduced, entirely exited or deliberately transferred to another risk owner. Every remaining commitment should have a place in the account model.
For the partial-fill example's reduction path, closure should show 200 A bought, 150 B bought, 50 A sold and no unresolved order remainder. The account retains 150 A and 150 B, with the compatible payoff assumption still valid. The $22.50 reduction proceeds and the actual charges belong in the case ledger. If the final payout is still pending, distinguish execution closure from settlement completion.
A case transferred to a directional strategy needs a recorded handoff. State quantity, acquisition history, current rule interpretation, authorized loss capacity and responsible owner. The receiving strategy must acknowledge the position in its own records. Otherwise the incident queue can look clean while the portfolio contains an orphan exposure that no process is monitoring.
The older Polymarket automated arbitrage bot discussion offers context for completed and incomplete workflows. The operational standard is that another reviewer can reconstruct why the incident was closed and what remains to be monitored. A status label without supporting records is an assertion, not evidence of completion.
A Human Handoff Needs a Bounded Request
When automatic recovery cannot proceed, the operator should receive a concrete decision packet. Include confirmed positions, unresolved orders, the evidence already checked and the alternatives that remain within current limits. State whether the request concerns contract interpretation, additional loss capacity or permission for a specific recovery action. A broad request to fix the trade can lead different people to assume different authority.
The receiving person should know which actions the bot has stopped and which monitoring continues. If cancellation is still uncertain, say so prominently. If a recommended sale assumes that no additional complementary units can fill, identify that assumption. The operator's decision should produce a new bounded permission that the executor can follow, rather than an informal message that overrides every existing limit.
Record the handoff time and responsible owner. If another shift takes over before settlement, preserve the remaining commitment and the next review condition. This prevents a case from falling between research, engineering and account operations merely because each group believes another one has accepted it. Responsibility remains visible until the exposure is resolved or deliberately assigned to an ongoing strategy.
Review Incidents Without Erasing Unsuccessful Attempts
Include recovered losses, rejected candidates and unresolved cases when evaluating the bot. A performance report that includes only fully paired successes selects the favorable execution path and omits the costs of operating the strategy. The incident dataset should show how often each failure type occurs, how much exposure it creates and how long it takes to establish a reliable account state.
Group incidents by cause rather than by final profit alone. A timeout can end profitably through luck while revealing a dangerous duplicate-submission habit. A small loss can result from a correctly bounded recovery that prevented a larger unpaired position. The review should judge whether the controls behaved as designed and whether the strategy's assumptions remain supported, alongside the financial result.
Use the incidents to improve specific boundaries. Repeated size rejections suggest a validation gap. Repeated unknown attempts may require better durable identifiers or account-query handling. Frequent partial pairs may justify smaller initial size or a different execution sequence. Semantic incidents require better rule review. A blanket instruction to retry faster is unlikely to address all of these causes and can worsen some of them.
The bot's recovery quality is demonstrated by clear exposure statements, bounded actions and reconciled closure. An intended pair can fail without becoming an uncontrolled account problem if the system preserves what is known and refuses to invent what is not. That discipline makes the complete trading process reviewable, including the cases in which the original projected margin never became real.