# cow-protocol

## Hero

### 16+ initiatives shipped over 30 months without adding management overhead.

CoW offloaded high-context ecosystem work — SDKs, tooling, governance, user-facing product — so the core team stayed focused on the protocol.

## Context

CoW Protocol is a core piece of DeFi infrastructure, providing MEV protection, programmable orders, and AMMs used by a growing ecosystem of developers, integrators, users, and DAO participants.

As the protocol matured, the main challenge shifted from correctness to accessibility and adoption. Powerful infrastructure existed, but using it—or building on top of it—required deep protocol knowledge and specific technical choices.

- Developers outside the JavaScript ecosystem couldn't easily integrate
- JS/TS teams were locked into Ethers.js v5
- Non-technical users couldn't deploy or manage AMMs without touching contracts
- Governance data was fragmented across multiple tools

## Our role

We partnered with CoW on initiatives that were high leverage but hard to delegate—work requiring deep protocol understanding, strong frontend and tooling expertise, and the ability to operate with minimal specification.

### Quote

> "You're proactive. You don't wait for a super complete specification… with you it was easy."

## What changed

Over time, CoW's ecosystem became easier to work with—without forcing users or developers into a single stack, workflow, or level of technical expertise.

- Developers can now integrate using the tools and languages they already use
- Frontend teams gained flexibility and reduced technical debt
- Users can deploy and manage AMMs through familiar interfaces
- The DAO has a clearer, more transparent view of governance participation

## Areas we took ownership of

#### Opening the protocol to new developers

CoW's JavaScript SDK left Python developers without a native way to integrate.

- **Python SDK**: CoW's existing SDK ecosystem was JavaScript-first, leaving Python developers without a native integration path.

• Built a Python SDK from scratch with full feature parity with the JS SDK
• Enabled order management, on-chain queries, and smart contract integration
• Opened the protocol to a developer ecosystem where Python dominates
- **Framework-agnostic TypeScript SDK**: The existing TS SDK was tightly coupled to Ethers.js v5, forcing all developers into a single stack.

• Re-architected the SDK around Viem
• Created adapters for Ethers v5, Ethers v6, Viem, and Wagmi
• Reduced bundle size by 32% (1447kb → 981kb)
• Shipped in 3 months, unlocking long-term flexibility

#### Reducing frontend friction and technical debt

CoW Swap's frontend relied on Web3React - an aging, largely unmaintained library causing wallet issues.

- **Frontend migration**: CoW Swap's frontend relied on Web3React  -  an aging, largely unmaintained library that caused wallet connection issues and slowed development.

• Leading a full migration to Wagmi + Viem
• Fixing wallet connection flakiness and enabling native EIP-6963 (multi-wallet) support
• Reducing maintenance burden and onboarding friction for new developers
• Expected completion: Q1 2025
- **CoW AMM Deployer (Safe App)**: CoW launched AMM contracts with strong community demand  -  but no interface to use them.

• Delivered a production-ready Safe App in just 2 weeks
• Enabled users to create, manage, and stop AMMs without writing code
• Became the primary interface at a critical adoption moment, while the core team stayed focused on protocol work

#### Making protocol complexity legible to users and the DAO

Abstract concepts made concrete. Governance made transparent.

- **Have I Been MEV'd**: To drive awareness around MEV exploitation and adoption of MEV Blocker, CoW needed a way to make a complex topic immediately understandable.

• Built bots for Twitter, Discord, and Telegram to check MEV exposure instantly
• Created a web dashboard for address scanning and wallet connection
• Turned a complex concept into shareable, viral moments across social platforms
- **Governance dashboard**: Governance data lived across Snapshot, on-chain contracts, and fragmented tools.

• Built a Dune dashboard consolidating proposals, voting analytics, and delegation data
• Enabled the community to track participation, quorum status, and voting power distribution
• Gave the DAO a clear, accessible view of governance health

## Why this partnership works

CoW's core team focuses on shipping protocol and user-facing features. That leaves a long tail of critical technical work—SDKs, migrations, refactors—that is foundational but difficult to prioritize internally.

This partnership works because Bleu operates effectively in that space: taking ownership of ambiguous, high-impact technical work with minimal guidance, while maintaining high code quality and low coordination overhead.

### Quote

> "The team worked super fast, operated on minimal guidance and took instruction super well."

## Outcome

By offloading hard-to-delegate technical work without adding management overhead, CoW was able to expand its ecosystem, improve developer and user experience, and strengthen long-term protocol maintainability, while keeping the core team focused on advancing the protocol itself.

## What we've shipped

- **cow-py**: Community-built Python SDK and baseline solver for CoW Protocol
- **Framework Agnostic SDK**: Restructured SDK architecture with framework-agnostic base packages
- **CoW Hooks dApps**: Four production hook applications for post-trade execution
- **CoW Swap Frontend Migration**: Migration to Viem + Wagmi, removing legacy dependencies
- **Morpho Hooks**: Morpho position management hooks for the CoW Hook Store
- **Safe Stop-Loss Orders**: Safe App for multisig stop-loss order management
- **Safe Milkman Orders**: Safe App for creating Milkman orders with deferred pricing
- **CoW AMM Deployer**: Safe App to create, edit, and manage CoW AMMs
- **CoW AMM Expansion**: Oracles, standalone contracts, and expanded AMM functionality
- **MEVaporized Bot**: Twitter, Discord, and Telegram bots + dashboard for MEV detection
- **Dune Governance Dashboard**: Analytics for proposals, voting, delegations, and delegate analysis
- **Programmatic Orders API**: ComposableCoW tracking, flash loan orders, and orderbook integration
- **Playground Performance Testing**: Load generation, benchmarking, and metrics visualization suite
- **Playground Offline Mode**: Offline development mode with DEX liquidity and test tokens
- **CoW Subgraph Redeploy**: Redeployment of CoW Protocol subgraph infrastructure
- **Solver Infrastructure**: Python baseline solver, templates, and onboarding tooling