Guide · July 15, 2026

What is cvforge? Plain-English apps on live options data

Written and reviewed by ConvexValue · Updated July 15, 2026

Every serious options trader eventually hits the same wall: the exact view you want doesn’t exist in your platform. Maybe it’s open interest by strike with your own coloring rules, a screener with a filter no vendor ships, or a payoff diagram that updates against the current chain. Your choices used to be: give up, wrestle a spreadsheet, or spend a weekend writing code against a data API.

cvforge is the fourth option. You describe the tool in plain English, and an AI agent builds it — as a real app, running on live US options data, on your machine.

How it works

  1. Download the app. cvforge is a free desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Sign in with your email — a 6-digit code, no password required.
  2. Describe what you want. Click New app and type what you’d tell a developer: “Chart SPX implied volatility by strike and expiry as a 3D surface, refreshed every minute.”
  3. Watch it get built. A coding agent (Claude or Codex — your choice) writes the app and wires it to live options data. You see a live preview as it takes shape.
  4. Iterate by talking. “Make the near-dated expiries warmer colors.” “Add a ticker input.” “Show a table of the top 10 strikes by volume below the chart.” Each request updates the running app.

The data connection is handled for you: cvforge mints a data API key for your install and injects it server-side. The pages you build never see the key, and you never have to manage one.

Open interest by strike, built from a prompt

What people build

  • Screeners — scan the options market for setups your platform can’t express.
  • Vol tools — IV surfaces, skew charts, term structures.
  • Positioning views — open interest and volume by strike, top-volume boards.
  • Strategy tools — payoff diagrams (condors, flies, spreads) estimated from Massive FMV.

cvforge does not provide option bid/ask quotes, midpoint, quote sizes, NBBO, or last trades. Massive fair market value is the only current per-contract valuation field, and it is an estimate rather than an executable price.

Anything you build can be published to the public gallery with one click, and anything in the gallery can be downloaded into your cvforge and modified — “make this mine, but for NDX” is a valid next prompt.

What it costs

The app is free, and there’s a free data tier to build against. Paid plans add more data throughput and AI capacity — see pricing for the current tiers. Most people go from download to a working first tool in about a minute; the getting-started guide walks through it.