Contracts Per Position
What it does
Number of contracts the bot uses for each new position entry. This is a flat per-entry contract count, not a percentage. The bot multiplies this by the buying power requirement of the structure and checks against the allocation budget before submitting. Each engine (mechanical, earnings, contraction, directional) has its own default of 1; earnings especially should stay at 1 because it involves binary event risk.
When to change it
Start at 1. Raise to 2 or 3 only on larger accounts where 1-contract positions represent too small a dollar amount. Custodial accounts are capped at 5 contracts regardless of this setting.
Safe range
1 (minimum, appropriate for most accounts under $50k) to 5. Above 10 is aggressive for any account.
Example
10-wide iron condor with contracts_per_position=1 requires roughly $700 buying power. At 2 contracts, $1,400. On a $20,000 account with 10% allocation ($2,000 cap), 2 contracts per position allows about 1 simultaneous position before the allocation cap binds.