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Case study — CoW Protocol

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

30+ Months of partnership · 16 Initiatives shipped · 32% TS SDK bundle size cut · 2 Weeks to ship the AMM Deployer

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.

Shipped:

cow-py — Python SDK: Built from scratch with full feature parity with the JS SDK

TypeScript SDK re-architecture: Rebuilt around Viem with adapters for Ethers v5, Ethers v6, Viem, and Wagmi

CoW AMM Deployer Safe App: Deploy and manage AMMs without touching contracts — shipped in 2 weeks

Safe Watch Tower: Auto-submits EIP-1271 signed orders once the signing threshold is reached

Dune governance dashboard: Governance participation in one transparent view

AI agent skills + MCP server: Five skill packs teaching coding agents the CoW stack

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.

Contact: [jose@bleu.builders](mailto:jose@bleu.builders)

16+ INITIATIVES SHIPPED OVER 30 MONTHS

CoW Protocol

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

30+

Months of partnership

Initiatives shipped

32%

TS SDK bundle size cut

Weeks to ship the AMM Deployer

Overview

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.

“You're proactive. You don't wait for a super complete specification. With you it was easy.”

Sasha, CoW Core Team

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

“We hand off a problem and they come back with it solved, plus three things we hadn't thought of yet.”

Sasha

CoW Protocol

30+ MONTH PARTNERSHIP

What we've shipped

16 initiatives across protocol tooling, frontend infrastructure, developer experience, and governance. 30+ months and counting.

cow-py — Python SDK

Built from scratch with full feature parity with the JS SDK

TypeScript SDK re-architecture

Rebuilt around Viem with adapters for Ethers v5, Ethers v6, Viem, and Wagmi

CoW AMM Deployer Safe App

Deploy and manage AMMs without touching contracts — shipped in 2 weeks

Safe Watch Tower

Auto-submits EIP-1271 signed orders once the signing threshold is reached

Dune governance dashboard

Governance participation in one transparent view

AI agent skills + MCP server

Five skill packs teaching coding agents the CoW stack

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

bleu / cow-pyPublic

forked from cowdao-grants/cow-py

REDUCING FRONTEND FRICTION AND TECHNICAL DEBT

The TS SDK locked every consumer into a single stack.

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)

MAKING PROTOCOL COMPLEXITY LEGIBLE TO USERS AND THE DAO

Deploying an AMM meant touching contracts; governance data lived in scattered tools.

AMM tooling + governance data

Using the protocol beyond a swap — deploying AMMs, signing programmatic orders, following governance — demanded technical depth most users don’t have.

CoW AMM Deployer Safe App shipped in 2 weeks
Dune dashboard consolidating governance participation
Watch Tower automating EIP-1271 order submission

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.

“The team worked super fast, operated on minimal guidance and took instruction super well.”

mfw, CoW DAO

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.