Strategy menu
The concrete strategy families Invest's generator can propose, and the hard limits on that menu. Mixed stock-and-option combos are excluded, off-menu proposals are downgraded, and every multi-leg structure must fit a single native combo order.
A menu, not an open field
The decision agent does not invent structures freely. It selects from a menu of 44 strategy templates that spans the option and equity structures Invest is built to express: verticals, iron condors and iron butterflies (including long and unbalanced variants), calendars, diagonals, jade lizards, backspreads, straddles and strangles in both long and short form, butterflies, covered, married, and protective equity combos, synthetics, the wheel, long box, single long and short options, and long equity.
The menu is a constraint, not a suggestion. If the model proposes something off-menu, or proposes selling upside that the menu does not sanction, the proposal is downgraded to no_action after output. The check runs after the model has spoken, not as a filter on what it may consider, so generation stays broad while the set of things that can actually become an order stays fixed.
Being menu-valid is necessary but not sufficient. A candidate still has to survive deterministic selection, validation, and the fail-closed risk gate before it can reach a paper order. The menu defines the shapes Invest knows how to express; the controls decide whether expressing one is acceptable right now.
Mixed combos are excluded from generation
Nine mixed stock-and-option combos are excluded from generation everywhere: conversion, covered_call, covered_put, married_put, protective_call, protective_collar, reversal, short_collar, and wheel. The reason is mechanical, not strategic. The order factory cannot route non-option legs, so these structures cannot be expressed as a clean order today. This is a phase-1 guard with a documented escape hatch for re-enabling mixed-combo generation later; until that hatch is deliberately opened, the exclusion is the honest state. Several of these names also appear as templates, which means the template exists while generation of it remains switched off.
Multi-leg means one order
When a strategy has multiple legs, Invest submits it as one native Interactive Brokers combo (BAG) order, or not at all. There is no path that legs into a spread one side at a time, because a partially filled spread is an unintended naked position. Degenerate combos, such as a zero-width vertical, are terminally rejected with a "degenerate combo" reason rather than repaired or retried. Option orders route through SmartRouting with the exchange set to SMART.
A deterministic enumerator alongside the model
Alongside LLM generation, Invest includes a deterministic structure enumerator that can lay out candidate structures mechanically. Both paths feed the same selection and validation downstream, and neither one approves its own output. That separation matters for the same reason it matters everywhere in Invest: the deterministic selector is the intended authority, and it is still being proven load-bearing.
For the research posture behind candidate generation, see strategy and research. For the controls that can stop a menu-valid candidate anyway, see risk controls.
Evidence feeds
Invest reads a curated set of market, flow, filing, and policy signals before it decides anything. This page covers the publisher fleet, the admission policy that decides which feeds reach the decision agent, and the freshness, cost, and write-integrity controls around them.
Risk controls
Conceptual controls that make Invest's autonomous paper-trading path fail closed before entry.