Installing

Overview

A new API project needs to be created through the account page on Ally’s website, and the project keys imported so that they can be used with the module.

Get the Library

To install the library, just use pip

pip install pyally

Log into Ally Invest, go to the specific account page, click Tools->API

Fill out the API token application as a Personal Application

It’s strongly recommended to store the keys in environment variables.

To do this, insert the following into ~/.bashrc:

export ALLY_CONSUMER_KEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
export ALLY_CONSUMER_SECRET=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
export ALLY_OAUTH_TOKEN=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
export ALLY_OAUTH_SECRET=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
export ALLY_ACCOUNT_NBR=12345678

First Steps

To import the library, just run

import ally

We need to pass the API keys to the pyally object on instantiation. This can be done in a few ways:

Keys: Environment Variables

It’s strongly recommended that the API keys be stored as environment variables. This is more secure than other methods, as it conceals the credentials of ally account if the code is leaked or distributed. If the account variables are specified as recommended this way, instantiation is easy:

a = ally.Ally()

And you’re done!

Keys: JSON file

The object creator also accepts a json file holding the dict keys, and this is about as secure as the environment variable method. Place the API keys into a JSON file (this looks very similar to a python dict):

{
    'ALLY_CONSUMER_SECRET':XXXX,
    'ALLY_CONSUMER_KEY':XXXX,
    'ALLY_OAUTH_SECRET':XXXX,
    'ALLY_OAUTH_TOKEN':XXXX,
    'ALLY_ACCOUNT_NBR':XXXX
}

Then the object can be instantiated like:

a = ally.Ally('/path/to/params.json')

Keys: Passing Directly

Variables can be passed in on instantiation. This way, no account variables need to be set. Keep in mind that this is much less secure for distributable applications, since anyone with these keys will have access to the account with which they’re associated.

params = {
    'ALLY_CONSUMER_SECRET':XXXX,
    'ALLY_CONSUMER_KEY':XXXX,
    'ALLY_OAUTH_SECRET':XXXX,
    'ALLY_OAUTH_TOKEN':XXXX,
    'ALLY_ACCOUNT_NBR':XXXX
}
a = ally.Ally(params)

Now you’re ready to make API calls with your new object and start trading.