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To reconstruct a Polymarket bot incident, compare the bot’s own logs with Polymarket’s order records, account trade records, and—when available—real-time user-order events. An order record describes an order; a trade record is evidence of an execution. Neither platform record alone explains what the bot intended, why it acted, or what happened during a local restart or disconnect.
Build a UTC timeline from preserved raw evidence, join records by their IDs, and keep conclusions limited to what those records establish. The steps below help investigate an unexpected order, an apparent missing fill, or a mismatch between a bot’s logs and its account.
What each record can—and cannot—tell you
| Evidence source | Useful for | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Authenticated order reads | Checking a known order ID or listing open orders; reviewing current status and matched size. | An order is not the same record as an executed trade, and a current snapshot does not by itself explain earlier bot activity. |
| Account trade reads | Inspecting execution records and comparing them with an order’s matched size and associated trade IDs. | Trade records do not explain the strategy’s decision or local software state. |
| Real-time user-order updates | Adding live order events to a timeline and comparing them with account reads. | They are a separate evidence stream; corroborate them against account records. |
| Real-time market data | Providing market context around a bot event. | A price or market-data event is not proof that your order filled. |
| Bot-side logs and persisted messages | Showing what the strategy intended, sent, received, retried, or saved locally. | Availability and completeness depend on what the operator collected; exchange-side records cannot recreate missing local evidence. |
Polymarket describes outcome shares as priced from $0.00 to $1.00 USDC and says each YES/NO pair is fully collateralized by $1.00 USDC. That market mechanic is not a substitute for verifying the actual side, outcome, size, and trade records for the account in question. See Polymarket’s FAQ.
Reconstruct the incident in a defensible sequence
1. Preserve evidence before restarting or cleaning up
Copy what is available before rotating, deleting, or overwriting it. Keep original files and record when and how each copy was made. Useful evidence may include:
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- Bot logs and raw REST responses.
- Raw WebSocket messages, including user-order updates and market-data messages.
- Deployment, process exit, and restart records.
- Strategy configuration and relevant software or environment version information.
Record the clock source and any known offset for each system. Do not assume a particular log or message exists: document what was actually retained and note any gaps.
2. Establish the account scope and time window
Write down the account or signer identity, the credentials or Session Key used for each API read, and the approximate incident window in UTC. Collect any known condition IDs, token IDs, and order IDs from the bot and account records.
Check scope before treating an empty response as proof that nothing happened. Polymarket’s order-management documentation describes restrictions for Session Key access: a Session Key client can fetch only orders and trades associated with those keys, and Deposit Wallet Owners cannot fetch orders from authorized Session Keys. A mismatch in identity or access scope can therefore produce an apparently empty result.
3. Reconcile known orders
For an order ID found in local logs, use an authenticated order lookup. Then list open orders as appropriate, applying available token, condition/market, or ID filters to narrow the records. Preserve the raw API response alongside any normalized spreadsheet or timeline entry.
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The documented order data includes status, side, price, original size, matched size, outcome, associated trades, and creation time. These fields help establish the order’s recorded state and what it reports as matched; they do not, by themselves, identify why the bot submitted or retried a request.
4. Reconcile executions separately
Retrieve account trades for the relevant account and time window or market/token, then compare the trade records with the order’s matched size and associated trade IDs. Documented trade fields include trade ID, condition ID, token ID, taker order ID, maker-order details, side, price, size, status, transaction hash, matched time, and update time.
Join records using the identifiers available: order ID, associated trade IDs, taker order ID, maker-order references, and transaction hash. Take care not to count an execution twice when the records represent both sides of a trade or reference related orders. Treat order state and trade records as related but distinct evidence, rather than summing every matching row as a separate fill.
5. Put the evidence on one UTC timeline
Use one row per event or record, retaining the original timestamp as well as a normalized UTC value. A practical timeline can use these columns:
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- Evidence source: bot intent, request, API response, user stream, market data, account trade, or transaction hash.
- Order or trade ID, plus market/condition and token where known.
- Action or recorded state.
- Size and price, when present.
- Confidence or a short note describing what the evidence does and does not establish.
Keep market movement as context, not as evidence of execution. Compare a user-stream event with authenticated account reads and trade records where possible. Polymarket documents its real-time user-order updates separately from its real-time market-data stream.
6. Separate findings from unresolved questions
For each conclusion, identify the record that supports it. For example, an account trade record can support that an execution is recorded with particular identifiers and fields; a bot log may show what request the software intended to send. If an event appears in only one source, say so rather than silently treating the streams as equivalent.
A retrieved order snapshot and trade list can support reconciliation, but Polymarket’s reviewed documentation does not promise that they reproduce every transient bot event or establish why a strategy acted. If records, IDs, logs, or account scope are missing, state that limitation. Do not infer cause, loss, or successful recovery from a status code alone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to investigate common mismatches
An order appears in the bot log, but not in an API result
Confirm that the lookup used the right account or signer, credentials, Session Key, and incident window. Check whether the order ID is complete and whether a scope restriction applies. A missing result is a reason to verify access and identifiers, not automatic proof that the bot never submitted an order.
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The order says it matched, but the expected fill is unclear
Compare the order’s matched size and associated trade IDs with the account trade records. Check the side, price, size, taker order ID, and maker-order details; use transaction hashes where available. Avoid counting linked maker/taker references as independent executions without confirming the record relationship.
The market moved, but no fill is visible
Market data can show context around a price change, but it does not establish that this account’s order executed. Look for the relevant order and account trade records, and note which evidence is absent.
The bot status differs from the account view after a restart or disconnect
Compare preserved local requests, responses, stream messages, and restart times against the current order read and retrieved trade list. These sources can expose a disagreement in recorded state, but without complete local logs they may not explain the precise transition or the strategy’s behavior during the interruption.
When the records still do not settle what happened
Report the unresolved pieces explicitly: missing bot logs, unknown clock offsets, unavailable identifiers, incomplete account scope, or a time window that cannot be narrowed. Keep a clear distinction between facts supported by Polymarket records and explanations that would require local bot evidence. API routes, schemas, credential behavior, and live-feed details can change, so consult the current order-management, user-stream, and market-data documentation when implementing or validating a collection workflow.
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