Playground

Docker Compose-based local development environment for the complete CoW Protocol stack

Playground

The CoW Protocol Playground is a comprehensive Docker Compose-based local development environment enabling developers to run the complete CoW Protocol stack, including services, a forked blockchain, and testing interfaces.

Key Components

The playground includes:

• All CoW Protocol services (orderbook, autopilot, driver, baseline solver)
• Anvil-based forked blockchain
• CoW Swap UI and CoW Explorer
• PostgreSQL database with migrations
• Otterscan block explorer
• Sourcify contract verification
• Grafana monitoring

The playground watches your local code and automatically recompiles and restarts services when you make changes.

Getting Started

1. Configure Environment

Copy the environment template and configure your RPC endpoint:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your RPC endpoint

2. Start Services

docker compose up

3. Wait for Initialization

Initial compilation and service stabilization takes 5-10 minutes.

4. Configure Wallet

Connect your wallet to localhost:8545 and import test accounts from the provided test mnemonic.

Service Access Points

Service	URL
CoW Swap UI	localhost:8000
CoW Explorer	localhost:8001
Orderbook API	localhost:8080
Otterscan	localhost:8003
Grafana	localhost:3000

Test Accounts

All test accounts derive from:

test test test test test test test test test test test junk

Each account begins with 10,000 ETH.

Never use these keys on real networks! They are publicly known test accounts.

Advanced Features

Tokio-console

Runtime debugging and async task inspection is available for development.

Live Reloading

Services automatically restart on code changes, enabling rapid iteration.

Network Switching

Support for multiple chains:

• Ethereum Mainnet
• Gnosis Chain
• Arbitrum One

Update environment variables and restart to switch networks.

Contract Verification

Local Sourcify integration for contract verification.

Service Limiting

Run only necessary components to conserve resources:

docker compose up orderbook autopilot

Important Considerations

• The playground currently supports only fork mode. A clean local network mode remains under development.
• Users on macOS/Windows should use the non-interactive compose file for improved performance due to Docker mount limitations:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.noninteractive.yml up