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Application specific data

There are times when attaching additional information to an order is useful. For example:

  • An integration partner might want to track the volume they bring to the protocol
  • A user might want to include a referral address in their order
  • A user might want to specify additional order options, such as CoW Hooks

CoW Protocol facilitates the inclusion of this additional information to any order through a special data field known as appData. This field is a bytes32 that points to an IPFS document that is a JSON file containing this information. Utilizing only on-chain data and IPFS, the content of this document can be retrieved and parsed.

AppData Document​

The AppData document is a JSON file that follows a specific JSON schema. It is versioned and the version is specified in the document itself. Versioning follows Semantic Versioning.

An example of an AppData document is:

{
  "version": "1.6.0",
  "appCode": "MyAwesomeUi",
  "metadata": {
    "referral": "0x1234567890123456789012345678901234567890"
  }
}
tip

Avoid all the pain of creating and parsing appData by using either the:

caution

If not using the CoW Explorer appData utility or the app-data SDK, make sure to follow the appData schema and upload your file to IPFS before placing orders using the resulting digest.

Schema​

The schema for the AppData document is defined in JSON schema. The schema is available in the app-data SDK. The schema is shown below: