What a Deriv bot XML file is and how to load one

A Deriv bot XML file is a plain text file that holds the blocks of a trading strategy: the market it watches, the contract it buys, the stake, and the rules for what happens after a win or a loss. It is not a program you install. It is a saved drawing of a block layout, and any builder that reads the format can open it and show you the same blocks the person who made it saw.

If someone sent you a file ending in .xml and told you it was a bot, that is what you have. You can open it in Bot Forge, look at every block, change any of them, and run it on a demo account before it ever touches real money.

The file holds blocks, not results

Open a bot file in a builder and you see a set of connected blocks. There is usually a block that picks the market, one that sets the trade type, one that sets the stake and the duration, and then a section that runs after each contract closes and decides whether to trade again.

Nothing in the file knows anything about the future. It contains instructions, and the instructions run exactly as written whether the market is kind that day or not. This matters because bot files get passed around with claims attached to them, and the claim never travels inside the file. The blocks are all there is. Trading loses money for a lot of people, and a file someone shared with you does not change that.

If the whole idea of a bot is new, it is worth reading what a Deriv bot is and what to check before letting one run before you load anything.

Bot files come from three places

Most files in circulation started life in one of three ways.

• Someone built it in a block builder and exported it. Binary Bot and DBot both let you save your work to a file, and that file is the XML you were sent.
• It came from a free library. Bots are published and shared openly, and the free bot library is one of those. Load it, look at it, change it.
• It was sold or given away in a group. These are the ones to read most carefully, because you did not watch it being made and you have only the sender's word for what is inside.

In every case the file is readable. You are never stuck trusting a description. Load it and the blocks tell you what it does.

Bringing a file in from Binary Bot or DBot

Bot Forge reads bot files from the older builders, so a strategy you built years ago in Binary Bot does not have to be rebuilt from scratch. You load the file, the blocks appear on the canvas, and you carry on from there.

The steps are short:

1. Save the XML file somewhere you can find it on the device you are using.
2. Sign in with your Deriv account through Deriv's own OAuth screen. The permission asked for is trading only, which lets BancaBot read your balance and place trades. It cannot withdraw and never sees your password.
3. Switch to your demo account.
4. Open Bot Forge and load the file.
5. Read every block before you press run.

There is more on how the older builders relate to each other on the Binary Bot and DBot page.

What to read in the file before you run it

Four things in a bot file change your risk more than anything else, and all four are visible on the canvas.

The market. A file written for Volatility 100 behaves differently on Volatility 10, and the one second versions of those indices move at a different pace again. Check which market the block names before you assume anything.

The stake. The starting stake in a shared file was chosen for somebody else's balance. Set it to something you would be content to lose on a session that goes badly.

What happens after a loss. Look for a block that multiplies the stake. If the stake doubles after every loss, the file is a martingale, and the size of the stake after a run of losses grows faster than most people expect when they first see it on paper.

Whether it ever stops. Some files have no stopping rule at all and will trade until the balance runs out or you close the tab. If there is no loss limit block and no target block in the file, add them yourself.

A demo account is where a new file belongs

Run an unfamiliar bot file on demo first, and watch it rather than leaving it. You are looking for whether it does what you thought it did: the right market, a stake that stays where you expect, and a stop that actually fires.

Demo and real accounts both work, and switching between them is done in the account selector. If you do not have a Deriv account yet, the guide on opening and switching accounts covers it.

What the file cannot tell you

A bot file tells you the rules. It does not tell you how those rules behaved in the past, and it cannot tell you how they will behave next. Two traders can run the same XML on the same index on the same day and end up in different places, because they started at different moments.

Read the blocks, set your own limits, and decide for yourself. None of this is financial advice, and no file is a substitute for deciding what you are willing to lose.

Next step

Load your file into Bot Forge on a demo account and read the blocks before you run it.