Installation

Requirements

  • Python 3.10 or higher

  • Alpaca API credentials (paper trading credentials for testing)

  • Optional: Redis server for advanced caching

Install from PyPI

pip install py-alpaca-api

Install from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/TexasCoding/py-alpaca-api.git
cd py-alpaca-api

# Install with pip
pip install -e .

# Or install with uv (recommended for development)
uv sync --all-extras --dev

Verify Installation

from py_alpaca_api import PyAlpacaAPI

# Create an instance with your credentials
api = PyAlpacaAPI(
    api_key="your_api_key",
    api_secret="your_secret_key",
    api_paper=True  # Use paper trading
)

# Test the connection
account = api.trading.account.get()
print(f"Account status: {account.status}")

Optional Dependencies

Redis Cache

For production environments, Redis caching is recommended:

pip install py-alpaca-api[redis]

Development Dependencies

For contributing to the project:

pip install py-alpaca-api[dev]

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in your project root:

ALPACA_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
ALPACA_SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key_here
ALPACA_API_PAPER=true  # Set to false for live trading

Next Steps