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ib_async-dx

ib_async-dx: ib_async, without the gateway ib_async-dx: ib_async, without the gateway

ib_async without the gateway. The program you already wrote against ib_async, with no IB Gateway, no Trader Workstation and no JVM between it and the venue.

Get started What drop-in means Notebooks GitHub

Two lines change

A program written against ib_async talks to IB Gateway or Trader Workstation over a socket on localhost, and that process talks to the venue. ib_async-dx puts the ib-dx engine where the gateway was: it logs in, holds the trading, market-data, historical and security-definition connections open, and answers every call ib_async makes.

- from ib_async import IB, Stock
+ from ib_async_dx import IB, Stock

  ib = IB()
- ib.connect("127.0.0.1", 4001, clientId=1)    # a gateway on localhost
+ ib.connect(username="...", password="...")   # a paper session; paper=False for live

That is the whole change. ib_async_dx is ib_async: the same names, the same objects and the same submodules, run by ib_async’s own code, installed as a dependency. Two classes differ: IB, a subclass of ib_async’s whose connect takes a login instead of a gateway’s address, and IBC, which has no gateway to start. The rest of the program — its events, its *Async calls, its Ticker and Trade, its util — runs unmodified, with the engine in place of the one layer that knew there was a socket.

Tip

Leave the credentials out of connect and it reads IB_USERNAME and IB_PASSWORD from the environment. Where those are set, the connect line can stay exactly as it was for a paper account: the host and port are not used, and the client id is carried into the login. The port does not choose paper or live; add paper=False for a live account.

What goes away

The gateway

Nothing to install, launch, log into on a schedule, or restart. No window either: it runs in a container, over ssh, on a machine with no display.

The JVM

No heap to size, and no JVM garbage collector pausing the process your ticks pass through.

The localhost socket

The engine runs inside your Python process. Nothing listens on a port, and ticks are delivered in-process.

IBC and the watchdog

No login window to script and no gateway to restart when it wedges. The engine logs in itself, and rebuilds a dropped connection on the session it already holds. ib_async's own Watchdog still runs, as a reconnect loop, with the login its IBC names.

What you get

ib_async, exactly

ib_async_dx exports ib_async's 103 names, and every one but IB and IBC is ib_async's own object, its __version__ among them. A test holds the two packages to that on every run.

Every call it makes, carried

ib_async's IB makes 67 calls on its transport at 2.1.0, and every one lands on the engine. A test reads that list out of ib_async's own source on every run.

Nothing in between

The engine is compiled Rust, running in your process through PyO3. There is no second process that can be wedged while your program looks healthy.

More than a gateway forwards

What the venue states that no documented call asks for — the order types the account may use, its algorithms, the features it has enabled, the whole option model — is a method on IB. Beyond ib_async lists them, with the four ib_async bugs fixed here.

Honest about its limits

A field the engine cannot carry is refused, as a gateway refuses a message it cannot read, instead of going out as something other than what was asked. The few things taken and not applied, and everything else that differs from ib_async over a gateway, are written down with the reason for each.

Where to go next

Getting startedInstall, credentials, and a first program. What drop-in meansThe promise, the connect line, and how it is proven. Running ib_async itselfib_async's own code, with the engine where its socket was, and what that carries. Beyond ib_asyncFour bugs fixed, and the calls ib_async has no name for. The notebooksAll eight of ib_async's notebook subjects, run with no gateway. Before you depend on itWhat differs from ib_async over a gateway, and what is not carried and why. What it rests onThe tests, the scripts and the sessions behind each claim.

Status

Under active development. The Python package is here with its suite: 318 tests, 315 of which run offline on every push to main and every pull request, on Python 3.11, 3.13 and free-threaded 3.14t, 2 that need a live login, and 1 a Python version condition excludes. ib_async’s own suite is written to run against the engine too, and has not been run against the venue at this revision; see Evidence.

A Rust client — ib_async’s model in Rust spelling, on the engine’s public API — is coming. It is not in this repository yet.

Neither ib_async-dx nor the engine is published to PyPI or crates.io yet; both install from their repositories: see Getting started.

Note

An independent project. It is not affiliated with ib_async or its maintainers, nor with Interactive Brokers. ib_async-dx runs ib_async’s own code as a dependency and does not copy it. ib_async is BSD-2-Clause, and ib_async-dx is AGPL-3.0.