Choose your first builder path
Use this route when you need to answer one question first: which DerivaDEX surface matches the thing you are trying to build, and which supporting contracts you must read before you automate against it.Builder questions this route answers
- Which transport family owns the integration you are designing.
- Whether your workflow stays inside the public REST and realtime families or crosses into restricted or product-specific boundaries.
- Which supporting references you need for signing, encryption, session delegation, sequencing, limits, and failure handling before you call the integration complete.
Choose the correct family first
| If your job is to… | Start here | Do not start here when… |
|---|---|---|
| query public market data, products, stats, or other request-response surfaces | REST API | you actually need subscriptions, ordered feed updates, or live account-update delivery |
| consume live market feeds or filtered account-style updates | Realtime API | you still need an initial snapshot; bootstrap that state from REST first |
| submit private trading requests into the operator path | REST Authentication | you are looking for a fully public operator endpoint catalog; public docs only expose the shared write-path posture and the restricted-family boundary |
| determine whether an operator or compliance-oriented surface is intentionally public | Operator & Restricted APIs | you are just integrating the core exchange public APIs; use REST or realtime instead |
| evaluate copy-trading-specific contracts | Copy Trading APIs | you are building against the core exchange surface rather than the product-specific copy-trading stack |
traderAddress, and initial orders, strategies, or balances still come from REST before realtime takes over for updates.
Integration prerequisites
Shortest safe path today
- Complete Building Your First Trading Bot.
- Implement How to Sign DerivaDEX Requests with EIP-712.
- Implement How to Encrypt Requests for the Operator.
- Implement How to Integrate Session Keys if the workflow is delegated or automated.
- Implement How to Track an Order Through Its Lifecycle.
- Read Rate Limits and Access Tiers and Error Reference before designing retries.
- Use How to Implement High-Frequency Trading Strategies, How to Handle API Rate Limits Effectively, and How to Optimize WebSocket Connection Performance when the integration becomes latency-sensitive.
- Use How to Integrate DerivaDEX Liquidity into Your DApp, How to Access Realtime Platform Data, and How to Build on Top of DerivaDEX Smart Contracts when the integration grows from one trading workflow into an application or protocol surface.
- Use Developer Ecosystem and Open Source Contribution Paths when you need the broader public repo, contribution, and integration-surface map.
Boundary rules that prevent wrong assumptions
- Public generated endpoint and channel references exist only for the active public REST and realtime families.
- Private trading submission still depends on signing, encryption, and receipt/lifecycle handling even when discovery begins from the public REST family.
- Operator and copy-trading routes are boundary summaries first. They exist to prevent misclassification of restricted or product-specific surfaces, not to imply that every adjacent artifact is a public generated contract.
- Treat the public docs as the current repo-backed contract surface. Recheck the source-artifact and generated-reference pages when transport details materially change.