AI Trading: Lesson Learned #119: Paper Trading API Key Mismatch After Account Reset

#trading #ai #machinelearning #python

Lesson Learned #119: Paper Trading API Key Mismatch After Account Reset

Date: January 8, 2026
Severity: HIGH
Category: Configuration/Infrastructure

Summary

Paper trading was completely broken because one workflow job still referenced OLD API secrets (ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_API_KEY) after the paper account was reset to new $5K account with different credentials (ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_5K_API_KEY).

What Happened

On Jan 7, 2026, CEO reset paper account to $5,000 with NEW API credentials
Most workflow jobs were updated to use ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_5K_API_KEY
The protect-existing-positions job in daily-trading.yml still used OLD secrets
This caused a credential mismatch that could block pre-market protection
No trades executed on Jan 7 or Jan 8 (2 days of paper trading lost)

Root Cause

Inconsistent secret naming across workflow jobs. When the paper account was reset, not all jobs were updated to use the new _5K suffixed secrets.

Location of bug: .github/workflows/daily-trading.yml lines 286-287

# BEFORE (broken):
ALPACA_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_API_KEY }}
ALPACA_SECRET_KEY: ${{ secrets.ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_API_SECRET }}

# AFTER (fixed):
ALPACA_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_5K_API_KEY }}
ALPACA_SECRET_KEY: ${{ secrets.ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_5K_API_SECRET }}

Impact

2 days of paper trading missed (Jan 7-8, 2026)
No Phil Town strategy validation during this period
Potential stop-loss protection gaps for existing positions

Fix Applied

Updated protect-existing-positions job to use correct _5K suffixed secrets.

Prevention

ALWAYS grep for ALL secret references when changing secret names
Create a centralized environment file or reusable workflow for secrets
Add CI check to validate all secret references match expected pattern
When resetting accounts, create a checklist of ALL places that reference API keys

Verification Commands

# Check for old secret references (should return 0 results after fix)
grep -r "ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_API_KEY[^_]" .github/workflows/
grep -r "ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_API_SECRET[^_]" .github/workflows/

# Check for new secret references (should find multiple)
grep -r "ALPACA_PAPER_TRADING_5K" .github/workflows/