concept
What is a definition
A Definition is logic that watches the chart and records when your setup appears — each occurrence becomes an event you can collect, browse, and study.
Plain language: you teach Chartnaut to spot a situation, then ask what usually happens after it.
What it does
Runs on historical (or live) bars for an instrument and timeframe
Checks your conditions — pattern, indicator levels, time of day, and so on
Emits an event when everything matches
Saves those events into a dataset when you Collect
What it is not
Not a trade — it does not place orders
Not a Study — it does not compute win rates by itself
Not an Indicator alone — though Definitions often use indicators
Example
Setup: “Price breaks the opening range high with volume above average.”
The Definition emits an event at each break. You collect a year of ES 5-minute bars. You run a Study asking “what is average excursion in the next 20 bars?”
Where it lives
Research → Definitions — create, version, collect, and attach studies from the definition detail page.
Agents use Definitions too
Conductor and research agents author and edit Definitions in the Definition Builder. Same artifact you would build yourself.
What good looks like
You can explain your setup in one sentence and point to a Definition that encodes it — then back the explanation with collected events, not gut feel.
Important distinctions
Definition (UI name) = setup detector that emits events.
Study = question asked over those events.
Playbook data collection = logging your trades for Historical Intelligence — different path from Definition Collect.
Next
Create a definition — get started
Collect a dataset — gather events
Compare building blocks — Definitions vs Studies vs Indicators