Well, since spread can’t be retrieved automatically or you have to be behind the screen like you said, a workaround is to see spread & slippage (cause by volatility!) as a whole. It can’t work for the exit, but only for the entry’s.

You can only take action after you are experiencing it, so, say you allow up 10 points worse entry-price on the dow (lowest spread times). Trades are executed live and the real entry-price is compared to the theoretical simulated entry-price in the same strategy.

The theoretical price can be the open of the bar of the market order +/- know published IG spread.

If the difference is bigger then i.e.the threshold of 10 points, spread & slippage effects the stoploss & the exit-price so much the strategy is then automatically stopped. (no restart)

It would be better not to use the last trade, but the last i.e. 3-5 trades average differences.

It’s like a plug & play code, just pop it in a strategy and set the threshold to stop trading.

If a system works 24h with different spreads it’s much more difficult.

Here’s an article to read about fake/simulated trading btw.

https://www.prorealcode.com/blog/learning/how-to-improve-a-strategy-with-simulated-trades-1/