Colab Unzip Workflow - File Paths

Critical Information

When you unzip Alpaca_trading.zip in Colab, the files are at:

/content/Alpaca_trading/

NOT on Google Drive. NOT at /content/drive/MyDrive/.

API Key Files in This Repo

The repo contains these API key files:

/content/Alpaca_trading/API_key_500Paper.txt   # 500 paper account
/content/Alpaca_trading/API_key_100kPaper.txt  # 100k paper account

NOT API_key.txt. The files have specific names.

Correct Default in training.ipynb

# Cell 15 - CORRECT
API_KEYS_FILE = '/content/Alpaca_trading/API_key_500Paper.txt'

# WRONG - file doesn't exist at this path
API_KEYS_FILE = '/content/drive/MyDrive/API_key.txt'

# WRONG - file name is wrong
API_KEYS_FILE = '/content/Alpaca_trading/API_key.txt'

Failed Attempts (Critical)

| Attempt | Why it Failed | Lesson Learned | |---------|---------------|----------------| | API_KEYS_FILE = None | No keys loaded, yfinance used | Always set explicit path | | /content/drive/MyDrive/API_key.txt | File not on Drive after unzip | Unzip goes to /content/, not Drive | | API_key.txt (relative) | Wrong working directory in Colab | Use absolute paths | | API_key.txt (wrong name) | File is API_key_500Paper.txt | Check actual filenames in repo |

Colab Directory Structure After Unzip

/content/
├── Alpaca_trading/              # Unzipped repo
│   ├── API_key_500Paper.txt     # API keys (500 paper)
│   ├── API_key_100kPaper.txt    # API keys (100k paper)
│   ├── notebooks/
│   │   └── training.ipynb
│   ├── alpaca_trading/
│   │   └── ...
│   └── ...
├── drive/                       # Google Drive (if mounted)
│   └── MyDrive/
│       └── ...                  # User's Drive files
└── sample_data/                 # Colab default

How to Verify in Colab

import os

# Check what's in /content/
print(os.listdir('/content/'))
# Should show: ['Alpaca_trading', 'drive', 'sample_data']

# Check API key files
print(os.listdir('/content/Alpaca_trading/'))
# Should show: API_key_500Paper.txt, API_key_100kPaper.txt, etc.

# Verify file exists
api_path = '/content/Alpaca_trading/API_key_500Paper.txt'
print(f"File exists: {os.path.exists(api_path)}")

Key Rules

1. After unzip: /content/Alpaca_trading/ - not Drive
2. Check actual filenames - don't assume API_key.txt
3. Use absolute paths - relative paths break in Colab
4. Verify before assuming - os.path.exists() is your friend

Files Modified

notebooks/training.ipynb:
  - Cell 15: API_KEYS_FILE = '/content/Alpaca_trading/API_key_500Paper.txt'

References

• Skill: data-source-priority - Why Alpaca API matters
• alpaca_trading/data/fetcher.py - Key loading logic with logging