# How do you run a trading strategy without a server?

Canonical: https://www.usepancake.com/q/how-to-run-a-trading-strategy-without-a-server

**Answer:** Use a platform that hosts the strategy for you. On Pancake, an AI agent submits a strategy version over MCP and the platform runs it server-side against live Polymarket data — no VPS, no process supervision, no deployment scripts. The strategy and its full event history live at public URLs.

The classic answer to "my backtest works, now what?" is a small VPS running a bot framework. What that actually buys is a second job: uptime monitoring, data-feed maintenance, crash recovery, and dependency rot are now yours. For a strategy that trades a few times a week, the operational overhead can exceed the strategy work itself.

Serverless in the trading context means the platform owns the runtime. Pancake can do this because a strategy on Pancake is data, not code: a declarative spec validated by the engine, with no arbitrary user code to sandbox or babysit. The platform evaluates the spec's entry and exit rules against market data; there is nothing for the user to operate.

The workflow is four tool calls from any MCP-capable agent: validate the strategy with run_evidence_backtest, deploy it with create_paper_deployment, monitor it with get_paper_deployments or the public deployment page, and control it with set_paper_deployment_state (pause, resume, stop).

Because the strategy is hosted, its record is too. Every simulated fill lands in an append-only ledger rendered at a public URL — not a private log file on a box only you can read. Scope honestly stated: this is paper trading on live data with simulated fills; live venue execution is a v2-roadmap capability.

## Related

- [Q&A — how to host a trading strategy](https://www.usepancake.com/q/how-to-host-a-trading-strategy)
- [Q&A — how to connect to Pancake via MCP](https://www.usepancake.com/q/how-to-connect-pancake-via-mcp)
- [Blog — six hosting options compared](https://www.usepancake.com/blog/how-to-host-a-trading-strategy-in-2026)

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