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This guide covers the full lifecycle for integrating deposits and redemptions with Mellow Core Vaults.

1. Architecture Overview

A Mellow Core Vault is a programmable, modular asset management contract. It serves as the central hub for capital management, risk control, and composable logic. Depositors provide capital; Curators manage that capital within guardrails set by the vault configuration. All deposit and redemption flows are time-buffered through an off-chain oracle - protecting depositors against flash-loan attacks and front-running by design.

Core Components

Deposit Lifecycle

Async queue

Time-buffered. Oracle prices the batch; Curator settles liquidity. Claim is a separate transaction after processing.

Sync queue

Shares issued or assets returned in the same transaction. No separate claim step.

Redemption Lifecycle


2. Supported Networks


3. Vault Discovery

Fetch the list of all vaults from the Mellow REST API. No authentication is required.

4. TypeScript Interfaces & Constants


5. ABIs

Only the functions and events relevant to integrations are shown here.

5.1 Deposit Queue ABI

5.2 Redeem Queue ABI

5.3 ERC20 ABI (subset - for approval)

5.4 Vault ABI (subset - for share balance lookup)

The shareManager address is itself an ERC20-compatible contract. Use ERC20_ABI with balanceOf, or use the richer SHARE_MANAGER_ABI below for more precise balance reads.

5.5 ShareManager ABI (subset)


6. Deposit

Overview

Depositing submits tokens to a DepositQueue contract. For async queues the shares are not immediately available - an oracle processes the batch and sets a price, after which the user calls claim to receive their shares.

Steps

  1. Pick a deposit queue from vault.deposit_queues. You can match by queue.asset address and queue.type deposit type (“sync” | “async”).
  2. Check queue.is_paused === false. Throw early if paused.
  3. Whitelist check (permissioned vaults only): Read shareManager.flags(). If flags.hasWhitelist === true, call shareManager.isDepositorWhitelisted(userAddress, merkleProof). If it returns false, the deposit will revert with DepositNotAllowed. For public vaults (hasWhitelist === false), pass [] as the proof.
  4. Find the matching Token in vault.deposit_tokens for queue.asset.
  5. Parse the human-readable amount: parseUnits(amount, token.decimals).
  6. Validate parsedAmount > 0n and parsedAmount <= UINT224_MAX.
  7. Only one pending deposit request per user is allowed per queue. For async queues, call requestOf(userAddress) and check timestamp === 0n before depositing.
  8. If the asset is native ETH (queue.asset === NATIVE_ETH_ADDRESS): check the user’s ETH balance, then call deposit() with value = parsedAmount.
  9. If the asset is an ERC20:
    • Read allowance(userAddress, queueAddress).
    • If currentAllowance > 0n, send approve(queueAddress, 0n) first. This is required for tokens like USDT that revert if you set a non-zero allowance on top of an existing one.
    • Send approve(queueAddress, parsedAmount).
    • Then call deposit(parsedAmount, zeroAddress, merkleProof) with value = 0n.
  10. For async queues: do not expect shares immediately. Poll claimableOf or listen for DepositRequestClaimed events, then call claim.

Code Example

Referral address: Pass zeroAddress (0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000) unless you have been issued a referral address by the Mellow team.
Merkle proof and whitelisting: Pass [] for public vaults. When shareManager.flags().hasWhitelist === true, the vault is permissioned. deposit() will revert with DepositNotAllowed if the proof is invalid or empty. Contact the Mellow team or query the Mellow API to obtain a valid proof for whitelisted addresses.

7. Cancel Deposit

Overview

A pending async deposit request can be cancelled before the oracle processes it. Cancelling returns the deposited tokens to the user. You cannot cancel once the request is claimable - call claim instead.

Steps

  1. Call requestOf(userAddress) on the deposit queue. Check timestamp > 0n - if zero, there is no pending request.
  2. Call claimableOf(userAddress). If > 0n, the oracle has already processed the request - you must claim it, not cancel it.
  3. Call cancelDepositRequest(). This function takes no arguments - it cancels the caller’s own request.

Code Example


8. Claim Deposit (async)

Overview

After the oracle processes an async deposit request, vault shares are held in the queue contract ready for collection. Call claim to transfer them to the user.

Steps

  1. Call claimableOf(userAddress). If > 0n, shares are ready to claim.
  2. If claimableOf returns 0n, call requestOf(userAddress). If timestamp > 0n, the oracle has not yet processed the request - wait and retry later.
  3. Call claim(userAddress). Returns true when shares are successfully transferred.

Code Example


9. Redeem

Overview

Redemption burns vault shares and, after oracle processing, returns the underlying asset to the user. Redeem queues are always async - there is always a separate claim step.

Steps

  1. Pick a redeem queue from vault.redeem_queues.
  2. Check queue.is_paused === false.
  3. Fetch the user’s redeemable share balance:
    • Call vault.shareManager() to get the share manager address.
    • Call shareManager.activeSharesOf(userAddress) - this returns only shares that are not currently locked in a pending redeem request. Use sharesOf if you want the total including locked shares.
  4. Parse the share amount using vault decimals (vault.decimals), not the token’s decimals. This is a common mistake - the share token uses the vault’s decimal precision.
  5. Validate parsedShares > 0n and parsedShares <= activeShareBalance.
  6. Call redeem(parsedShares). No ETH value, no ERC20 approval - the vault contract locks shares directly from the caller.
  7. Wait for oracle processing and handleBatches(), then call claimRedeem (see Section 10).
Multiple requests are allowed. Unlike deposits, a user can have many concurrent redemption requests. Each redeem() call creates a new request with its own timestamp.
Requests cannot be cancelled. Once submitted, a redemption request is permanent. This is intentional. Cancellable redemptions would allow yield-griefing by requesting redemption to force liquidity pulls from external protocols, then withdrawing the request. The locked shares remain locked until claimed.
Settlement flow: After redeem(), two off-chain steps must happen before you can claim: (1) the oracle calls handleReport() to price the batch, then (2) the Curator calls handleBatches() on the RedeemQueue to pull the required liquidity from subvaults. Listen for the RedeemRequestsHandled event. It fires when handleBatches() settles one or more batches and requests become claimable. The timing depends on vault configuration (redeemInterval) and curator activity, typically ranging from minutes to hours.

Code Example

No approval needed: Unlike deposits, redemptions do not require an ERC20 approve. The vault contract has the authority to lock and burn shares on behalf of the caller.

10. Claim Redeem

Overview

A user may accumulate multiple redemption requests over time. The requestsOf function returns all requests paginated. Once the oracle marks a request isClaimable, the user can batch-claim them by passing the corresponding timestamps to claim.

Steps

  1. Paginate requestsOf(userAddress, offset, 100):
    • Start with offset = 0.
    • Increment by 100 each iteration.
    • Stop when a page returns fewer than 100 items.
  2. Filter to requests where isClaimable === true.
  3. Extract the timestamp field from each claimable request. Cast to number - timestamps are uint32 values, safely representable as JavaScript numbers until year 2106.
  4. Call claim(userAddress, timestamps). Returns the total assets transferred.
claim() is idempotent. Non-claimable or already-claimed timestamps are silently skipped. The contract does not revert. You may safely pass all known timestamps and let the contract filter them.

Code Example


11. Fees

Fees in Mellow Core Vaults are paid in vault shares, not in underlying assets. The FeeManager contract calculates and deducts fees automatically during oracle report handling - integrators do not call fee functions directly.
Fees are vault-specific and set by Curators. Check the vault configuration or the Mellow API for exact fee parameters before displaying estimated returns to users.

12. Error Reference


13. Events Reference

Listen for these events to drive UI state or index on-chain activity.

Example: watching for claim events with viem