[Proposal setup] Proposal title

Please provide your proposal title

by TxPipe - API Layer for Cardano protocols using Tx3

[Proposal Summary] Budget Information

Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA

97917

[Proposal Summary] Time

Please specify how many months you expect your project to last

6

[Proposal Summary] Translation Information

Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated

No

Original Language

en

[Proposal Summary] Problem Statement

What is the problem you want to solve?

Protocols interactions in the UTxO model lack standardized interfaces, hindering composability and UI development by relying on provider-specific abstractions for transaction building.

[Proposal Summary] Supporting Documentation

Supporting links

• https://txpipe.io
,
• https://github.com/txpipe
,
• https://docs.txpipe.io/tx3

[Proposal Summary] Project Dependencies

Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'

no dependencies

[Proposal Summary] Project Open Source

Will your project's outputs be fully open source?

Yes

License and Additional Information

Apache 2.0

[Theme Selection] Theme

Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal

Developer Tools

[Campaign Category] Category Questions

Mention your open source license and describe your open source license rationale.

Apache 2.0 was chosen because it is a permissive and business-friendly license, widely adopted across the open-source ecosystem, and it provides legal clarity with explicit patent protection for contributors and users.

How do you make sure your source code is accessible to the public from project start, and people are informed?

The repository will be public from day one, with all development activity shared transparently. Updates will be announced through public channels, and a dedicated Discord channel will allow direct community interaction.

How will you provide high quality documentation?

A comprehensive public documentation site will be maintained, including user guides, developer references, and contribution guidelines, following the same high standards established in TxPipe’s previous open-source projects.

[Your Project and Solution] Solution

Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem

Problem Statement

The UTxO model lacks an interface describing how to interact with dApp protocols. There's nothing in a dApp protocol describing how to map user-intents to transactions that interact with on-chain artifacts to fulfill those request. Users rely on provider-specific user-interfaces to abstract the complexity of building these transactions.

This ad-hoc approach to dApp interactions is a limiting factor. Composability of protocols, orchestration of protocol workflows, novel UI development, etc; have such a high level of effort that it becomes prohibitive in many scenarios.

It would be much more powerful if dApp protocols could be expressed as an API with a clear interface in similar fashion as web2 solves the abstraction of their backend services as collections of web APIs.

Proposed Solution

TxPipe has developed a DSL (domain-specific language) that allows developers to express UTxO protocols in terms of user-intents, turning the transaction-building problem into function calls with a explicit parameter set.

This proposal aims to reverse-engineer existing top dApp protocols in the Cardano network and provide a well-defined interface (expressed as Tx3 code) and create an API layer allowing any developer to interact with Cardano dApps as effortlessly as interacting with a REST API in the web2 world.

Scope

The scope of proposal includes the following main components / tasks:

• Cardano protocols interface description: select 5 high-profile dApps in Cardano and generate accurate representations of their transaction interfaces using the Tx3 language.
• Web API Layer: development of an extensible backend component that provides programatic access to the the dApp protocols using a common web API interface (HTTP / JSON-RPC).
• Documentation & examples: provide comprehensive documentation on how to deploy, run and consume the API layer and the supported protocols.

Protocol Selection

We'll select the protocols to reverse engineer using the following criteria:

• Well-known protocols in the Cardano ecosysem, judging by on-chain activity
• Diversify by protocol vertical (DEX, lending, marketplace, etc) to avoid repetition of very similar interfaces
• Prioritize protocols where their development teams express interest in exploring an API layer

[Your Project and Solution] Impact

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

By making leading Cardano protocols accessible through ready-to-deploy APIs, this project lowers technical and operational barriers while increasing integration flexibility. Developers can build on established protocols without deep protocol-level expertise, extensive custom transaction-building, or reliance on third-party infrastructure.

Enabling self-hosted deployments further reduce the ecosystem’s dependence on centralized protocol operations, mitigating risks from outages, bottlenecks, and single points of failure. This increased accessibility will accelerate application development, expand the range of teams able to launch on Cardano, and unlock new composability between protocols—fostering a more resilient, diverse, and interconnected ecosystem

[Your Project and Solution] Capabilities & Feasibility

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

TxPipe has been developing open-source tools for the Cardano ecosystem for over 4 years and we're not going anywhere. Evidence of our commitment can be found by evaluating the continuous activity of our public code repositories. We are maintainers of widely used open-source tools like Pallas, Dolos, or Oura.

Experience developing in the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has helped develop and audit several top tier dApps for the Cardano ecosystem, giving us deep understanding of protocol architectures. This experience allows us to evaluate the feasibility of the project and its potential benefit from a developer's perspective.

Successful Catalyst proposals

We have successfully completed several Catalyst proposals. This is evidence that our team has the required capabilities to fulfill these type of projects.

Development process will be public and open-source

Both the output and the development process will be public and open-source. This approach provides an easy way for the Catalyst team and the Cardano community to evaluate the progress at each step of the process.

[Milestones] Project Milestones

Milestone Title

Project Scaffold and Architecture

Milestone Outputs

• Architecture document with system design and component diagrams
• Code repository with project structure ready for feature development
• Configured CI workflows to ensure a robust development methodology

Acceptance Criteria

• Architecture design reflects scope and features of the platform
• The code repository structure reflects the components described in the architecture
• The CI workflows runs mock tests in preparation for further development

Evidence of Completion

• Link architectural documentation.
• Link to open-source code repository.
• Link to CI workflows in Github
• Video walkthrough of the designed architecture

Delivery Month

1

Cost

29375

Progress

10 %

Milestone Title

Reverse Engineering of Cardano Protocols

Milestone Outputs

• Interface definitions for the 5 selected Cardano dApps using the Tx3 language.
• End-to-end tests that execute trasnactions from mapped user-intents
• Documentation and diagrams describing the protocols in natural language

Acceptance Criteria

• Each dApp protocol is successfully represented with a complete interface specification in Tx3.
• Tests are able to generate transactions accurately for the mapped user-intents using public testnets.
• The documentation provides comprehensive understanding of how each dApp protocol operates.

Evidence of Completion

• Published source code of the Tx3 specifications for each assessed dApp.
• Links to public explorers showing the transaction created using the Tx3 interfaces.
• Link to documentation describing the interface of each of the selected protocols.

Delivery Month

3

Cost

26667

Progress

50 %

Milestone Title

Codegen Mechanism and API Layer

Milestone Outputs

• An automated code generation tool which can produce API endpoints from Tx3 files.
• A functional API layer providing programmatic access to dApps via HTTP/JSON-RPC.
• Source code repositories for the code generation tool and API layer.

Acceptance Criteria

• The code generator successfully produces functioning API endpoints from provided Tx3 files.
• The API layer enables interaction with available dApp protocols.
• Source code is consistent with the scope specified in the design document.

Evidence of Completion

• Link to source code with successful generaction of API endpoints
• Link to publicly avialable API endpoints providing access to the protocol interfaces
• Publicly accessible repositories containing the source code for the code generation tool and API layer.

Delivery Month

5

Cost

26667

Progress

90 %

Milestone Title

Final Report

Milestone Outputs

• publicly available source-code for the complete API layer
• publicly available Tx3 files of all protocol definitions
• publicly available documentation and examples
• a close out video showcasing the final output of the project
• a close out report describing the project process and outcome

Acceptance Criteria

• the provided source code is comprehensive and matches the proposal scope
• the API layer component can be installed using the provided docker images
• the documentation is comprehensive, including setup and configuration instructions
• the close out video follows Catalyst guidelines
• the close out report follows Catalyst guidelines

Evidence of Completion

• Source-code available in our Github repository (URL TBD)
• Docker images available for download (URL TBD)
• Documentation website with install and configuration instructions (URL TBD)
• Close out video uploaded to YouTube (URL TBD)
• Close out report uploaded to Google drive (URL TBD)

Delivery Month

6

Cost

15208

Progress

100 %

[Final Pitch] Budget & Costs

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

• Rust Developer - 1 FTE x 4 months = ₳60,000
• Frontend developer - 0,5 FTE x 2.5 months = ₳10,417
• Site Reliability Engineer - 1 FTE x 1,5 mothns = ₳20,000
• Project Manager - 0,25 FTE x 6 months = ₳7,500

Total = 97,917

ADA/USD rate = 0.6

[Final Pitch] Value for Money

How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?

The bulk of the budget falls under the software development category. TxPipe has extensive experience in the field, allowing it to provide good value for money. The hourly rates are defined using fair market prices. The estimation for the level of effort takes into account all of the optimizations that our team is capable of providing after years of experience developing software solutions in the Cardano ecosystem.

[Required Acknowledgements] Consent & Confirmation

Terms and Conditions:

Yes