For traders

Full Timeframe Continuity (FTFC)

One question, asked on every timeframe at once: is the current candle trading above or below its open? When every timeframe you monitor gives the same answer, you have Full Timeframe Continuity — the 30-minute candle, the daily, and the monthly are all being pushed the same way at the same moment. FTFC doesn't generate trades; it tells you which trades are swimming with the current and which are fighting it.

Bar-type notation is defined in bar-types.md — this doc assumes it. Applies to v2.2.7-split.

The idea

Every candle carries two independent facts (bar-types.md calls them channels): its structure — what it did to the prior range — and its sign — close above or below its own open. FTFC is built entirely from the sign channel. Structure tells you what a setup is; continuity tells you whether the broader stack is leaning with it.

Three readings:

Reading	Meaning
FTFC Up	Every monitored timeframe's current candle is above its open
FTFC Down	Every monitored timeframe's current candle is at or below its open
Conflict	Anything else — the timeframes disagree

Conflict is the market's resting state. Full continuity is the exception, and that's exactly what makes it information: when every enabled timeframe agrees, participants at every scale are positioned the same way, and a trade against them needs all of them to be wrong.

How the Suite computes it

calculateFTFC re-evaluates on every chart update. Each enabled timeframe slot contributes its forming candle — not the last completed one — and the test is close-so-far versus open. All above → Up. All at-or-below → Down. Mixed → Conflict.

The details that matter:

It's live by design. The forming candle's close moves tick by tick, so FTFC can flip intrabar — especially when a big timeframe is hovering at its open. That's the point: continuity is a statement about now.
Flat buckets down. A close exactly at the open counts as not above — it blocks FTFC Up, not FTFC Down. Same tie-break as everywhere else in the Suite (bar-types.md).
Only enabled slots vote. The Timeframe Preset (or your Custom rows) decides which of the six slots are live; a disabled slot contributes nothing — no levels, no table row, no FTFC vote. Slots with no data yet (young symbols) are skipped rather than counted against continuity.
Preview Mode doesn't distort it. FTFC always reads the real forming candles, never the preview-shifted synthetic ones.
Keep the chart at or below Timeframe 1. Slots below the chart's timeframe are refused for signals and greyed in the table (see ../engineering/htf-correctness.md) — don't leave them enabled expecting a meaningful vote.

Where you see it

The data table row. Both table modes render a merged full-width FTFC cell: green FTFC Up, red FTFC Down, gray Conflict. With Label Style = Universal the same cell reads Trend Up / Trend Down / No Trend. The table is FTFC's only on-chart readout — hide the table and you lose the display (alerts still work).

Don't reconstruct it from the CC column. A 2u can close red — on 2s the suffix names the break side, not the sign (bar-types.md, the u/d overload). Only 1u/1d and 3u/3d suffixes carry close-vs-open. The FTFC cell is the authoritative read.

Alerts. Two surfaces:

Include FTFC (Alerts - Detailed → Include FTFC, off) appends the state to consolidated alert text: 1H 2d-1-2u HAM @ 542.10 … | FTFC Up.
Four dedicated alert conditions — FTFC Shifted, FTFC Up, FTFC Down, FTFC Conflict — fire on the transition into that state, not continuously while it holds.

The settings that touch it

Setting	Where	Default	What it does
FTFC checkbox, per signal family	Each Signals group — all seven families have one	Off	Suppresses that family's setups when continuity stands against them
Exhaustion Excludes from FTFC	Advanced → Exhaustion Behavior	Off	Table cell only: drops structurally finished timeframes from the reading
Include FTFC	Alerts - Detailed	Off	Appends the FTFC state to consolidated alert messages
Preset / Timeframes 1–6	Timeframe Preset, Timeframes	TheStrat Classic	Decides which slots vote

How the filter actually gates

The per-family FTFC checkbox is a veto, not a prerequisite. With it on, a bullish setup is suppressed while FTFC reads full Down — and only then. Conflict, the usual state, does not suppress:

FTFC reading	Bullish setup, filter on	Bearish setup, filter on
Up	shows	suppressed
Conflict	shows	shows
Down	suppressed	shows

So the filter removes the lowest-probability case — a setup fighting a fully aligned stack — without demanding the stack already agree with you before a setup can appear. (The gate lives in shouldDrawC1Level; each family's checkbox is wired to the family a setup resolves to — a hammer reversal obeys the 2-2 Reversals toggle, not Inside Reversals' — FIX BTC-1.)

Two places are deliberately stricter — they demand agreement with the trade, not just absence of opposition:

Failing 2 in-force. With the Reclaims FTFC filter on, a bullish F2d goes in force (and alerts) only under full FTFC Up; its levels still draw under Conflict. A reclaim fades a just-failed breakout, so the filter insists the whole stack back the fade. Expect far fewer F2 signals with this on.
Outside-bar targets. With the Outside Bars FTFC filter on, a 3u's magnitude and exhaustion targets require full FTFC Up (mirrored for 3d).

Exhaustion Excludes from FTFC

A timeframe that has already hit its exhaustion target (or magnitude, when no exhaustion level exists) has structurally finished its move — arguably it shouldn't keep blocking the reading. Turn this on and exhausted timeframes are dropped from the calculation: if five of six are bearish and the lone bullish one has already hit exhaustion, the cell reads FTFC Down instead of Conflict.

Display only (FIX P1-e): this changes the data-table cell and nothing else. Signal gating and alerts always use the raw reading, so toggling it will never make signals appear or disappear. Treat it as a read aid, not a filter.

Using it

As context first. The row is a one-glance regime check: Conflict says pick your spots; full continuity says one side owns every timeframe right now.
Continuations pair naturally. 2u-1-2u under FTFC Up is a pullback resuming a move the whole stack agrees on — the classic use, and the recommended way to tame 2-2 Continuations' noise (signals.md).
On reversals it trims, not chokes. Because the filter is a veto, a bullish reversal survives Conflict — it only disappears while every timeframe is against it, which is precisely when fading is most expensive.
Reclaims + FTFC is strict on purpose. Turn it on only if you want F2s exclusively when the full stack backs the fade.
FTFC Shifted as a regime ping. One alert that fires whenever the stack changes its answer — useful even if you never enable a single filter checkbox.

The close-vs-open channel and the u/d overload: bar-types.md. The families each FTFC checkbox filters: signals.md. Where the gate sits in the draw pipeline: ../engineering/drawing-decisions.md.