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To build a Polymarket trading bot, connect an SDK or the direct APIs, discover markets and their outcome identifiers, authenticate correctly, validate each order against the current book and market rules, then track execution through settlement and position reconciliation. The official documentation describes TypeScript and Python SDKs as well as direct REST and WebSocket integration; it does not establish that a bot will be profitable or that access is permitted in every location.

Choose how your bot will connect

Polymarket documents two SDK options and a lower-level API route. The SDK overview describes the intended use cases and tradeoffs, but does not provide a performance guarantee. Check the official SDKs and APIs guide for current setup instructions and supported versions.

Integration Documented fit What you take on
TypeScript SDK Node.js applications, bots, and services Use a supported TypeScript/Node environment; the SDK provides typed models, shared client interfaces, signing helpers, pagination, and real-time subscriptions.
Python SDK Services, scripts, notebooks, and data workflows Use a supported Python runtime; the SDK provides a unified client and integration helpers.
Direct REST and WebSocket APIs Unsupported runtimes or cases needing lower-level control Implement more of the signing, service-specific integration, and transport handling yourself.

For a first bot, an SDK is generally the more straightforward route when its runtime fits your project. Choose direct APIs when you have a concrete need for wire-level control or a runtime the SDK does not support.

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Separate market discovery, trading, and account state

Polymarket exposes distinct API surfaces. Keeping their responsibilities separate in your bot makes it easier to distinguish what a market is, what an order is doing, and what your account ultimately holds. The official API overview describes these services and their data channels.

  • Gamma: discover markets and retrieve market metadata.
  • CLOB: access prices and order books, and place or manage orders.
  • Data API: inspect positions and account activity.
  • WebSockets: receive real-time market updates, plus authenticated user-channel updates for orders and trades.

Public market data does not require credentials. Private trading requests do. Treat market metadata, execution events, and account positions as separate inputs to your bot rather than assuming that a market-data response tells you what happened to an order.

Authenticate without exposing signing secrets

Private CLOB access uses two authentication layers, and placing an order also requires authorization of that order. In the documented flow, a signer-controlled Polygon address signs an EIP-712 ClobAuth message to establish wallet control and create or derive CLOB credentials. Private requests then use API credentials to produce HMAC-SHA256 signatures. An order carries a wallet signature authorizing its contents. See the API authentication documentation and the first-order quickstart for the current flow.

Do not put private keys or API secrets in source code, logs, or shared configuration. An environment-variable example in a quickstart demonstrates how values can be passed to a program; it is not, by itself, a complete key-management policy. Protect access to signing credentials and limit which parts of the bot can read them.

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Find the market and the selected outcome’s identifier

Discover the market, select the intended outcome, and use the trading identifier exposed for that outcome. The unified SDK calls this identifier assetId or asset_id. Its underlying type depends on the market version: a Polymarket Protocol V2 market uses a position ID, while a CTF market uses a token ID. Do not assume one identifier type applies to every market. The quickstart explains the distinction.

Keep the market metadata and selected outcome associated with the identifier your order uses. This helps prevent a bot from trading the wrong side after a market lookup, refresh, or configuration change.

Validate the market and order constraints before submission

Before building an order, confirm that the market is accepting orders and read its current book, minimum order size, and tick size. The CLOB rejects prices that do not conform to the market’s current tick size. The exact values are market-specific, so fetch them rather than embedding assumptions in strategy code. The order documentation describes the applicable precision rules.

  1. Fetch the current market state and verify that orders are being accepted.
  2. Read the order book, minimum size, and tick size for the selected market.
  3. Round the intended price to a valid tick, then check that the rounded order size still meets the minimum.
  4. If you cache tick size, listen for the tick_size_change event and refresh the cached value when it occurs.
  5. Submit only after validating the final order against the latest constraints available to your bot.

These checks reduce avoidable rejections; they cannot guarantee that the book or market state will remain unchanged between reading it and submitting an order.

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Choose an order type for the execution you want

A limit order controls the price but may remain unmatched. A market order is priced against current book liquidity and favors immediate execution over a fixed exact price; it does not rest on the book. The available choices and their tradeoffs are summarized in the official order guide.

Order choice What it does Key tradeoff
Limit Sets the order price; an unmatched order may wait on the book. Price control does not ensure a fill. The current tick size and minimum size still apply.
Market with FAK Fills available liquidity immediately and cancels any unfilled remainder. A partial fill is possible; the remainder does not stay resting.
Market with FOK Requires the full order to fill immediately or the order does not fill. May produce no execution if the entire amount is not available at the required bound.
Post-only limit Rejects an order that would match immediately, so a submitted quote adds liquidity rather than taking it. Does not guarantee a later fill; it can be rejected if it would immediately match.

A market-price estimate is only a snapshot. Estimate it by walking the visible depth for the quantity you intend to trade. For a buy, use that estimate as a maximum price; for a sell, use it as a minimum. If the book changes before submission, the order may partially fill or fail to fill within the bound. Treat both outcomes as normal possibilities in your strategy logic, not as proof of a system error.

Track order status through asynchronous settlement

An order response and a settled position are different states. Check the response’s success flag and status, then continue observing the order and trade updates through the authenticated user channel. Polymarket’s quickstart states: “Settlement happens asynchronously after an order matches.” A match therefore does not mean that the final position is already visible or that a settlement hash is immediately available. See the quickstart and order guide.

  • matched: the order matched immediately.
  • delayed: matching begins after the market’s configured delay. Treat this as pending, not as a fill, and follow subsequent order updates.

After settlement, query positions through the Data API and reconcile the observed position size against your bot’s internal ledger. Keep pending orders, matched trades, and settled positions distinct in that ledger so a delayed match or asynchronous settlement is not recorded prematurely as a final holding.

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Build failure handling around expected outcomes

A reliable integration needs to handle more than a successful submission. The documented order behavior implies several ordinary branches your bot should model:

  • Rejected order: inspect the response and refresh market state, price precision, or order size before deciding whether to retry.
  • Partial FAK fill: record the executed amount and treat the canceled remainder as unfilled.
  • Unfilled FOK: record no execution rather than assuming the order remains open.
  • Delayed match: keep the order pending and wait for its subsequent updates.
  • Matched but unsettled: track the trade while waiting for settlement, then reconcile against the position data.
  • Changed tick size: update cached market constraints after tick_size_change and validate any replacement order against the new value.

Before enabling live order submission, test the bot’s decision and state-transition logic with mocked or recorded inputs. This is a way to check your own software behavior, not a Polymarket-provided testing environment or a claim about trading results.

Check access rules for your location

The SDK, API, quickstart, and order documentation cited here do not establish whether a particular person or bot may trade from a particular jurisdiction. Confirm current official availability and applicable legal requirements for your location before connecting an account or submitting orders. Market access, API names, SDK versions, fees, tick sizes, minimum sizes, and matching behavior can change; verify current documentation before deploying an integration.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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