Hawkes Flow Ignite TradingView Indicator

Written by Dominic Walsh · Published 22 Jul 2026

Volume bursts arrive in clusters. Also, one large print tends to pull more behind it. Hawkes Flow Ignite, a free order flow indicator TradingView traders can load on any chart, models that habit directly. Indeed, each burst adds 1.0 to a running intensity, and that intensity decays with a 15-bar half-life. Once intensity clears its own rolling threshold, the script waits for a decisive bar and flags the side.

It is free and open source. Still, you can add it to any chart from the Hawkes Flow Ignite script page on TradingView, and the full Pine source is published there for you to read.

What Hawkes Flow Ignite plots on the price chart

Signals print as flags, three layers deep. Thus, a huge translucent flag sits under a buy bar, a large one over it, then a solid flag carries the text HFI up. Sell signals mirror that above the bar with HFI dn. Hence, the script also paints the signal bar and tints the chart background while the cluster regime holds. A dashboard sits in the top right corner. Next, eight rows report intensity, the live threshold, whether this bar counts as a burst, the half-life, the regime, position state and bars since the last signal.

How Hawkes Flow Ignite is built

Step one: build the intensity

The script first defines a burst. Then, it takes a 20-bar simple average of volume and a 20-bar standard deviation. A bar counts as a burst when volume clears mean plus 1.5 standard deviations. Yet, that is a z-score gate, so it adapts to the instrument and the session. Quiet hours trigger nothing. A genuine surge registers.

Then comes the Hawkes step. Truly, the script computes a decay factor of exp(-ln2 / 15) from the default 15-bar half-life. That lands near 0.955 per bar. Plainly, each new bar multiplies the previous intensity by that factor, then adds 1.0 if this bar bursts. So one burst leaves a mark that fades to half strength after 15 bars. Also, three bursts close together stack into a much taller reading. The intensity therefore measures clustering, not a lone spike.

Step two: gate the signal

Raw intensity means little on its own. Indeed, the script compares it against its own history: a 100-bar average and a 100-bar standard deviation. A cluster regime starts when intensity rises above that mean plus 1.0 standard deviations. Still, the threshold moves with the chart, so a busy crypto pair and a slow currency cross both get a fair test.

A cluster alone triggers nothing. Thus, the script also demands a decisive bar. It measures close minus open against ATR over 14 bars. Hence, a buy needs close minus open above 0.30 ATR. A sell needs it below minus 0.30 ATR. Next, both conditions must hold on the same bar.

Two more gates finish the job. Then, a position lock stores the last signal direction, so the script will not fire two buys in a row inside one cluster. A four-bar cooldown spaces signals further apart. Yet, every signal also waits for barstate.isconfirmed, so nothing prints until the bar closes.

How to read the signals

Start with the dashboard, not the flags. Truly, the Intensity row against the Threshold row tells you the regime. When intensity sits well above threshold, flow is clustering and the background tint switches on. Plainly, low, flat intensity means the tape has gone quiet, so expect no signals at all.

Treat the flag as a timing mark inside an active cluster. Also, the maths says bursts arrived together and a decisive bar then printed in one direction. It says nothing about where price sits in the wider structure. Indeed, pair it with your own levels.

Watch the Position row for context. Still, it reads LONG, SHORT or FLAT and reflects the internal lock, not a real trade. A LONG state blocks further buy flags until a sell fires. Thus, so a quiet stretch after one signal may mean the lock still holds, not that flow stopped.

Every Hawkes Flow Ignite setting explained

The script exposes 10 inputs, grouped in the settings panel exactly as shown below. Defaults are the published values.

Hawkes Process

Setting	What it does	Default	Range
Volume Window	Sets the volume window used in the calculation.	20	10 to 100
Burst k (vol > mean + k*sd)	Z-score threshold for a volume bar to count as a burst event.	1.5	0.5 to 4.0
Decay Half-Life (bars)	Bars over which an excitation decays to half. Smaller = faster reset.	15	3 to 50

Signal Logic

Setting	What it does	Default	Range
Intensity Threshold k	Cluster regime when intensity > mean + k*sd.	1.0	0.2 to 4.0
Bar Strength x ATR	Entry only on bars where |close-open| >= k*ATR.	0.30	0.05 to 2.0
Cooldown Bars	Sets the cooldown bars used in the calculation.	4	1 to 20

Visual

Setting	What it does	Default	Range
Show Dashboard	Toggles show dashboard on the chart.	on	on / off
Show 3-Layer Glow	Toggles show 3-layer glow on the chart.	on	on / off
Buy Color	Colour used for buy color.	#00e676
Sell Color	Colour used for sell color.	#ff1744

Alerts built into Hawkes Flow Ignite

The script ships 11 alert conditions. Hence, open the alert dialog on the chart, pick the indicator as the condition source, then choose the event you want. Alerts fire on the close of the bar, so they follow the same confirmed-bar rule the on-chart signals use.

• HFI Buy
• HFI Sell
• HFI Any Signal
• HFI Cluster Start
• HFI Cluster End
• HFI Burst
• HFI Strong Up Bar
• HFI Strong Dn Bar
• HFI Webhook JSON

Other markets and timeframes

Every threshold here stays relative. Next, bursts use a z-score on volume, the cluster gate uses standard deviations of intensity, and bar strength scales with ATR. No input hard-codes a pip or dollar value. Then, so the defaults carry over to indices, gold, crypto and equities without retuning. The one real dependency is volume. Yet, spot forex reports broker tick volume rather than exchange volume, so the burst test runs on a proxy. Instruments with no volume feed produce no bursts at all.

Limitations worth knowing

This is a flow-clustering detector, not a trading system. Truly, it carries no target, no stop and no position sizing. The dashboard Position row tracks its own lock state and nothing more.

Intensity needs history. Plainly, the rolling threshold reads 100 bars of intensity, and the script declares a max_bars_back of 500. On a freshly loaded chart with thin history, give the threshold time to settle before you lean on it.

Clusters and decisive bars do not fix direction. Also, a burst cluster can mark a violent reversal just as easily as a continuation. The 0.30 ATR test only picks the side that moved on that one bar. Indeed, raise the bar strength input if you want fewer, blunter marks.

Get Hawkes Flow Ignite on TradingView

Open Hawkes Flow Ignite on TradingView

If you also trade MetaTrader, the MT4 and MT5 indicator library is available below.

Using it alongside MetaTrader

Adding a script on TradingView takes one click, so there is no install step here. Thus, if you want the same idea on MetaTrader, the MT4 and MT5 indicator installation guide walks through copying files into the data folder and attaching them to a chart. You can also browse the full MetaTrader indicator library, the MT4 indicators section, or the other free TradingView scripts published on this profile. For related chart tools see the MT5 indicators section and the forex trading strategies guides.

External references

• Negative volume index on Wikipedia
• Liquidity at Investopedia
• CandleVolume at StockCharts ChartSchool

Frequently asked questions

Does Hawkes Flow Ignite repaint?

No. Hence, both signals gate on barstate.isconfirmed, so a flag prints only after the bar closes. The intensity value itself updates during the live bar, and the dashboard shows that. Next, historical flags stay exactly where they landed.

What is a Hawkes process, in plain terms?

It is a model where events make further events more likely. Then, each volume burst lifts the intensity by 1.0, and that lift decays with a 15-bar half-life. Bursts arriving close together stack up. Yet, isolated bursts fade out before they matter.

Why do I see the background tint but no flag?

The tint marks the cluster regime alone. Truly, a flag also needs a bar whose body clears 0.30 ATR in one direction, plus the four-bar cooldown, plus a position state that allows that side.

Which half-life should I use?

Shorter half-lives reset faster and suit intraday charts. Plainly, the default of 15 bars keeps one burst relevant for roughly 15 bars. Push it toward 50 on higher timeframes if you want intensity to carry across sessions.

How much should I rely on this indicator?

Treat it as one input, not a decision. Also, it is a chart analysis tool, not trading advice. Test it on your own markets and timeframes before relying on it. Results are not guaranteed; past performance is not indicative of future results.