Trading alerts, bots, webhooks, and broker APIs: what is the difference?

A charting platform may create an alert when price crosses a level, an indicator changes state, or a strategy places a simulated order. The alert itself does not necessarily trade. It is simply a notification that a defined event occurred.

Alerts can be shown on screen, sent by email, delivered to a phone, or posted to a webhook URL. The message content determines whether another system can understand and act on it.

A webhook is an internet request sent from one service to another when an event occurs. In trading, it commonly carries fields such as strategy name, symbol, side, action, quantity, and a unique identifier.

A webhook receiver should authenticate the request, validate the payload, protect against duplicates, and reject instructions that do not match the user's approved settings. A webhook is not secure merely because the URL is difficult to guess.

A bot is a broad term for software that performs automated actions. It may generate signals, route orders, monitor status, or all three. A broker API is the interface the bot or platform uses to request account data and submit supported orders.

TradeLuma sits between user-directed alerts and supported broker workflows. Its role is to add structure, controls, tracking, and reconciliation rather than treating every incoming alert as an unconditional order.