Development Setup

Instructions for setting up the CoW Protocol Watch Tower development environment

Development Setup

Instructions for setting up the CoW Protocol Watch Tower development environment with Node.js, Yarn, and configuration guidelines.

Requirements

To develop the CoW Protocol Watch Tower, you’ll need:

• node (>= v16.18.0)
• yarn
• npm

Installation

Install project dependencies:

yarn

Local Development Workflow

Testing against the Goerli or Sepolia testnet is recommended during development.

To run the watch-tower locally:

# Install dependencies
yarn

# Run watch-tower
yarn cli run --config-path ./config.json

Using the CLI

The watch-tower provides a CLI interface with multiple commands:

# Run the watch-tower
yarn cli run --config-path ./config.json

# Dump database contents
yarn cli dump-db --chain-id 1

Available CLI Options

• --config-path <path> - Path to chain configuration file (default: ./config.json)
• --database-path <path> - Path to the database (default: ./database)
• --log-level <level> - Log level (default: INFO)
• --dry-run - Do not publish orders to the OrderBook API
• --one-shot - Run the watch-tower once and exit
• --disable-api - Disable the REST API
• --api-port <port> - Port for the REST API (default: 8080)
• --silent - Disable notifications (local logging only)
• --slack-webhook <url> - Slack webhook URL
• --only-owner <address...> - Monitor specific contract/safe addresses only

Testing Against Testnets

When developing, test against Goerli or Sepolia testnet by following these steps:

1. Configure your RPC endpoint in the config file
2. Set the appropriate deployment block for the testnet
3. Run the watch-tower with your test configuration

yarn cli run --config-path ./config.testnet.json

Environment Variables

All CLI options can be configured via environment variables:

• LOG_LEVEL - Log level
• CONFIG_PATH - Path to configuration file
• DATABASE_PATH - Path to database
• DRY_RUN - Dry run mode
• ONE_SHOT - One-shot mode
• DISABLE_API - Disable API server
• API_PORT - API server port
• DISABLE_NOTIFICATIONS - Disable notifications
• SLACK_WEBHOOK - Slack webhook URL

Linting and Formatting

The project uses ESLint and Prettier for code quality:

# Lint the code
yarn lint

# Fix linting errors
yarn lint:fix

# Format the code
yarn fmt