Article
Connect Cursor to Your Live Trading Chart
Connect Cursor to your live chart so it can read your real symbol, drawings, levels, and indicators instead of guessing from a screenshot. Works with whichever broker or data provider you connect.
Cursor is where a lot of traders already write their strategy code, but it has no idea what is on your chart. You end up pasting screenshots, which lose the numbers, or retyping levels, which drift from what you actually drew. MyLinedChart closes that gap over the Model Context Protocol: Cursor reads your live chart, your real symbol, timeframe, drawings, levels, indicators, and candles, and can draw back onto it with your confirmation. It works with whichever provider you have connected, Interactive Brokers, Schwab, Alpaca, or any of the market-data feeds. It stays read-only to your account and orders. Educational only, not trading advice.
Why connect Cursor to a chart at all
Cursor is good at code and blind to your chart. The usual workarounds both leak information. A screenshot flattens your analysis into pixels, so the model cannot read an exact level off it, cannot tell a drawn zone from a coincidental shadow, and has nothing to carry into the next session. Retyping levels into the prompt works once, then drifts the moment you move a line on the chart.
Connecting the two removes the copy step. The chart stays the source of truth, and Cursor reads it directly, so the rule you end up writing quotes the same numbers you drew.
Connect it
Three steps, from inside the app.
- Open MyLinedChart.
- Click AI (MCP) in the chart toolbar. The dot beside it is red when no agent is connected.
- Click Add to Cursor. Cursor opens and asks to add the server. Cursor must already be installed.
If you have already connected another agent
The panel shows the connected agent with a green dot, and the connect cards are collapsed. Expand Connect another agent and the Cursor card is there. Connecting Cursor does not replace anything you have already set up; several agents can be configured at once.
If you would rather edit a file, the same panel offers the config directly. Add it to ~/.cursor/mcp.json for every project, or .cursor/mcp.json inside one project. It is the same wrapper shape any MCP client uses, so nothing about it is Cursor-specific.
What Cursor can see
Once connected, the read tools give Cursor the same view of the chart you have.
- Chart context: symbol, timeframe, range, data provider, and connection state.
- Candles: recent OHLCV bars for the chart you are on.
- Drawings: trend lines, levels, zones, and notes on the current symbol, with their prices.
- Indicators: which are configured, their parameters, and where they sit.
- Trades: the session's executed fills as chart markers.
- A screenshot of the live chart, when a picture is genuinely the faster answer.
What it can do back
There is one write tool, and it is annotation-class. Cursor can propose trend lines, rays, segments, Fibonacci retracements, rectangles, and text notes anchored to real dates and prices; configure built-in indicators; invent a custom formula indicator from a description; and set the symbol, timeframe, or chart type.
Every one of those changes is confirmation-gated. Cursor proposes, you approve, and only then does the chart change.
Prompts worth starting with
The useful pattern is to let it read first, then write, then code, all without leaving the editor.
- Read my chart and describe the setup in plain language.
- List every level I have drawn on this symbol with its exact price.
- Turn the level at the top of the range into a written trading rule with an entry and an invalidation.
- Now write that rule as a condition in the language I am using in this project.
- Draw yesterday's high and low, and label them.
What it will never do
The connection is chart-context only. Account and order access is read-only, and there is no tool that places, modifies, or cancels an order. Cursor can help you get to a written rule and the code behind it; you place the trade yourself, in your own platform.
For the same workflow in other agents, see Using Codex or Claude Code With IBKR Chart Data. For what the connection exposes in full, see MCP toolkit.
FAQ
Does Cursor work with MyLinedChart?
Yes. Cursor is a Model Context Protocol client, and MyLinedChart ships a one-click Add to Cursor button in the AI (MCP) panel. Clicking it opens Cursor, which then asks to add the server.
Do I need a different setup than Claude Code or Codex?
No. It is the same MCP server for every client; only the way you add it differs. Cursor has a one-click button in the app, Claude Desktop has a double-click installer, and Codex takes a single command.
Can I set it up by editing a file instead?
Yes. Add the config to ~/.cursor/mcp.json to make it available everywhere, or to .cursor/mcp.json inside a single project. The app shows the exact config to copy.
Can Cursor place trades through this?
No. The connection is chart-context only and account and order access is read-only. There is no tool that can place, modify, or cancel an order. Every chart change it proposes is confirmation-gated.
Can Cursor write my strategy code from what is on the chart?
It can draft code from the levels and rules you have on the chart, in whatever language your project uses, because it reads the real values rather than a screenshot. Review and test anything it writes before it goes anywhere near a live account.
Sample Structured Chart-Data Exports
Review how chart drawings, annotations, OHLC, volume, and execution context become reusable structured data.