How Helmsman works

1. Connect the wallet you use on Hyperliquid. This shares your address.
2. Sign in with a message that names this site. Check its domain. Login grants no trading or transfer permission.
3. Approve a trading key, valid for up to 180 days.
4. Approve the fee ceiling. Both approvals use off-chain signatures and cost no gas.

The list is chosen from Hyperliquid’s public data by fixed, published rules (Helmsman can also add a trader by hand), and every trader is re-checked daily against the published removal rules. It states each trader’s allowed markets and follower cap. You set a USDC allocation, maximum leverage, per-market cap and a required drawdown stop. The drawdown threshold is a percentage of your allocation, applied to this follow’s combined realised and unrealised loss.

When the trader’s position changes, Helmsman scales it by your allocation divided by their account value. It applies your caps and orders the difference from your current position.

Price moves alone do not trigger rebalancing. Small differences are skipped, and new orders must meet Hyperliquid’s $10 minimum. You trade later, with different fills, caps and fees.

The desk inside the app shows BTC and ETH candles with Helmsman’s own strategy levels, and lets you place your own orders. Those orders are signed by a trading key that lives only in your browser (approved with one wallet signature, valid 30 days, revocable any time) and go straight to Hyperliquid; Helmsman’s servers never see it. The same 0.03% fee applies. A market one of your follows is managing is locked for manual trading, because the engine would resize it back.

• Pause stops copying position changes. Existing positions remain open, and risk limits can still reduce or close them.
• Stop cancels open orders and closes this follow’s positions at market. It is final; following again requires a new follow.
• At the drawdown limit, the follow stops and closes its positions.
• If the engine stops responding, the independent safety process alerts the Helmsman team. The engine only sends orders that fill immediately or are cancelled, so no orders are left resting, and drawdown stops keep running.