The problem
Anyone can write an expert advisor that looks profitable in the Strategy Tester. Getting one accepted onto the MQL5 Market is a different problem, because the validator runs it against conditions a clean backtest never produces.
What was built
Xau Basket Scalper (99 USD), a configurable gold framework where the operator picks the entry engine, risk model and session windows. Aurum Risk Core (39 USD), a gold protection engine. And Lot Size From Risk And Stop, a free sizing utility that reads the broker’s own tick value instead of assuming a fixed pip value, and always rounds the lot DOWN — because a risk tool must never quietly risk more than you asked for.
The engineering decision
Clearing the validator took five rounds and surfaced four real defects a clean backtest had hidden: no notion of whether the server would accept a trade, stop levels treated as absent when a broker reports zero, closes retried against a freeze level, and an EA locked to a single symbol. Those are the failures that break a bot on a live account and never show up in the tester.
Next plate
XAU/USD Trading BotA containerised Python trading system on the MetaTrader 5 API, built to be audited rather than trusted.