Porting a Bot to Polymarket

PolySimulator only simulates trades, with virtual money. It does not place orders on Polymarket or on any other venue, and it has no live-trading mode. If you decide to trade on Polymarket, you do that with your own Polymarket account, your own wallet and your own code, which talks directly to Polymarket’s API. PolySimulator is not involved in those trades. This page shows what changes in a bot’s code when you port it from PolySimulator’s API to Polymarket’s.

Comparison

Aspect	PolySimulator (simulated)	Polymarket (your own account, outside PolySimulator)
Money	Virtual only (simulated API wallet — $10,000 Pro / $25,000 Pro+)	Your own funds, in your own wallet
Order execution	Simulated fills on PolySimulator’s ledger	Polymarket CLOB, orders sent by your code
Market data	Real prices from Polymarket	Real prices from Polymarket
API surface	PolySimulator API v1	Polymarket’s CLOB API (different endpoint paths)
Settlement	Simulated, on market resolution	Polymarket, on-chain

Orders on Polymarket use real money. Your code places them with your own credentials, directly on Polymarket; PolySimulator does not send or relay them. Results in PolySimulator are simulated and say nothing about results on Polymarket. Polymarket is a separate service with its own terms.

Migration Steps

Test in PolySimulator

Run your bot through multiple market cycles. Verify:

Order placement works correctly
Error handling covers all edge cases
P&L tracking is accurate
WebSocket reconnection is stable

Get Polymarket API credentials

Polymarket uses two-layer authentication — both are required to trade on Polymarket:L1 (wallet-level): Your Polygon wallet’s private key signs an EIP-712 message to derive L2 credentials. Each order also requires an EIP-712 signature from this key.L2 (API-level): HMAC credentials derived from L1 — used to authenticate all CLOB requests:

API Key (POLY_API_KEY)
API Secret (used to generate POLY_SIGNATURE)
API Passphrase (POLY_PASSPHRASE)

Prerequisites:

A Polygon wallet (MetaMask, Rabby, etc.) with a funded private key
USDC.e tokens on Polygon for trading capital
Token approval on the Polymarket Exchange contract

Use the Polymarket SDK to derive credentials automatically:

from py_clob_client.client import ClobClient

client = ClobClient("https://clob.polymarket.com", key=PRIVATE_KEY, chain_id=137)
api_creds = client.create_or_derive_api_key()

See Polymarket’s authentication docs for full details.

Update environment variables

Your ported bot needs Polymarket credentials and client configuration. Order payload structure stays highly portable, but endpoint paths/auth handling differ:

# PolySimulator (simulated) — your current config
POLYSIM_BASE_URL="https://api.polysimulator.com/v1"
POLYSIM_API_KEY="ps_live_kJ9mNx2p..."

# Polymarket (your own account) — used by your code directly
POLYMARKET_BASE_URL="https://clob.polymarket.com"
POLY_API_KEY="your_polymarket_api_key"
POLY_API_SECRET="your_polymarket_api_secret"
POLY_PASSPHRASE="your_polymarket_api_passphrase"

PolySimulator has no live mode and no TRADING_MODE switch. Porting means your code uses Polymarket’s own client and credentials and sends its orders to Polymarket’s CLOB API itself.

Use CLOB-compatible endpoint (recommended for porting)

The CLOB-compatible endpoint takes the same order fields as Polymarket’s CLOB API, so the order itself carries over. The client setup and authentication change:

import requests, os

BASE_URL = os.environ["POLYSIM_BASE_URL"]  # https://api.polysimulator.com/v1
headers = {"X-API-Key": os.environ["POLYSIM_API_KEY"]}

order = requests.post(f"{BASE_URL}/clob/order", headers=headers, json={
    "token_id": "71321045679252...",
    "side": "BUY",
    "price": "0.65",
    "size": "10",
    "order_type": "GTC",
})
order.raise_for_status()
print(order.json())

import os
from py_clob_client.client import ClobClient
from py_clob_client.clob_types import ApiCreds

# Client setup + submission method changes; order field semantics stay close:
api_creds = ApiCreds(
  api_key=os.getenv("POLY_API_KEY"),
  api_secret=os.getenv("POLY_API_SECRET"),
    api_passphrase=os.getenv("POLY_PASSPHRASE"),
)
client = ClobClient(
    "https://clob.polymarket.com", chain_id=137,
    key=os.getenv("PRIVATE_KEY"), creds=api_creds,
)

# Same trading intent, submitted via Polymarket SDK order flow:
from py_clob_client.clob_types import OrderArgs, OrderType
from py_clob_client.order_builder.constants import BUY

signed_order = client.create_order(
  OrderArgs(
    token_id="71321045679252...",
    side=BUY,
    price=0.65,
    size=10,
  )
)
result = client.post_order(signed_order, OrderType.GTC)
print(result)

Auth difference: PolySimulator uses X-API-Key header. Polymarket uses L2 HMAC headers (POLY_ADDRESS, POLY_SIGNATURE, POLY_TIMESTAMP, POLY_API_KEY, POLY_PASSPHRASE) plus EIP-712 signing for each order. The Polymarket SDK handles the complexity — only the client initialisation changes, not the order fields.

Check your integration on Polymarket

These calls go to Polymarket and use real money from your wallet. Minimal order sizes are enough to check that your integration works:

import os
from py_clob_client.client import ClobClient
from py_clob_client.clob_types import ApiCreds, OrderArgs, OrderType
from py_clob_client.order_builder.constants import BUY

creds = ApiCreds(
  api_key=os.getenv("POLY_API_KEY"),
  api_secret=os.getenv("POLY_API_SECRET"),
  api_passphrase=os.getenv("POLY_PASSPHRASE"),
)
client = ClobClient(
  "https://clob.polymarket.com",
  chain_id=137,
  key=os.getenv("PRIVATE_KEY"),
  creds=creds,
)

# 1. Place a small test limit order
signed = client.create_order(
  OrderArgs(token_id="71321045679252...", side=BUY, price=0.10, size=1)
)
posted = client.post_order(signed, OrderType.GTC)
print("Posted order:", posted)

# 2. Verify open orders
open_orders = client.get_orders()
print("Open orders:", len(open_orders))

CLOB Compatibility Layer

The POST /v1/clob/order endpoint accepts the same request body as Polymarket’s POST /order:

Field	Type	Description
`token_id`	string	CLOB outcome token ID
`side`	string	`BUY` or `SELL` (uppercase)
`price`	string	Limit price as decimal string (“0.01”–“0.99”)
`size`	string	Number of shares as decimal string
`order_type`	string	`GTC` (default), `FOK`, or `GTD`

All numeric fields (price, size) must be strings (e.g., "0.65" not 0.65). side must be uppercase ("BUY" not "buy"). order_type must be a CLOB type ("GTC", "FOK", or "GTD") — not "market". POST /v1/clob/order does not accept IOC/FAK; for fill-and-kill semantics use the native POST /v1/order endpoint instead.

See CLOB Compatibility for full schema details and response format.

Switching Back to PolySimulator

To go back to simulated trading, change your bot’s environment variables back:

POLYSIM_BASE_URL="https://api.polysimulator.com/v1"
POLYSIM_API_KEY="ps_live_kJ9mNx2p..."
# Remove or comment out Polymarket credentials

Restart your bot and it resumes paper trading with the simulated balance.

Checklist

Bot tested across multiple market scenarios in PolySimulator
Error handling verified (network errors, rate limits, slippage)
Polymarket API credentials obtained and secured
Environment variables updated
First Polymarket orders placed at minimal size
Monitoring and alerting configured for your Polymarket bot

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Trading Guide

Market Data

Simulation

Account & Portfolio

WebSocket Feeds

Webhooks

Bot Development

Porting to Polymarket

Porting a Bot to Polymarket

Porting a Bot to Polymarket

Comparison

Migration Steps

CLOB Compatibility Layer

Switching Back to PolySimulator

Checklist

​Porting a Bot to Polymarket

​Comparison

​Migration Steps

​CLOB Compatibility Layer

​Switching Back to PolySimulator

​Checklist

Porting a Bot to Polymarket

Comparison

Migration Steps

CLOB Compatibility Layer

Switching Back to PolySimulator

Checklist