A paper-trading engine tracks a fully simulated portfolio: position sizing, stops, targets, and realistic cost estimates for fees, spread, slippage and funding. Nothing here places, modifies or cancels a real exchange order — that's a hard, server-enforced invariant, not just a setting.
This matters because it lets you evaluate the confluence engine's actual behavior — when it generates a candidate, how it sizes risk, how it reacts to news — without the emotional and financial pressure of real capital, and without the survivorship bias of only remembering your wins.
Paper-trading results do not guarantee live results. Markets, execution quality, and your own psychology under real risk all differ from a simulated ledger.