If you were online last week, you probably came across The Open Intents Framework. And even before that, you may have heard about intents. Either way, this post is here to break it all down, making the concept digestible for anyone interested. I aim for this post to be a zero-to-one guide on intents, explaining their role in Ethereum's multi-chain future, and how The Open Intents Framework makes them easier to build with.
We’ll cover:
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Why Ethereum needs intents – Scaling introduced fragmentation, making UX worse.
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How intents work – A way to simplify execution by focusing on what users want, not how it happens.
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How to build with intents – A look at the The Open Intents Framework and how it makes building intent-based applications much easier.
Trip down the memory lane: Scaling Ethereum
We scaled Ethereum with the rollup-centric roadmap—huge progress! But now we face a new challenge: Ethereum is fragmented.
Rollups, L2s, and alternative execution environments have created a siloed landscape where users and liquidity are spread across multiple chains. Moving assets between these ecosystems often means dealing with slow, manual, and complex processes.
We used to have one chain. Now, we have many. Switching between them, adding networks to your wallet, and managing assets across different chains is clunky and confusing, even for the most degens.
This fragmentation leads to inefficiencies—not just for users but also for developers building cross-chain applications. Gas costs, bridging delays, and liquidity fragmentation make interoperability difficult.
Ethereum should feel like a single network again, where actions happen smoothly without users worrying about chains, bridges, or approvals. For that, we need fast, cheap, and seamless interoperability—and intents offer a way to get there.
What are Intents?
At their core, intents change the way transactions work. Instead of users manually figuring out how to get from point A to point B, they simply declare what they want—and let specialized actors handle the rest.
For example:
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A user expresses an intent: Swap 100 USDC on Base for 100 USDC on Arbitrum.
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A solver (a specialized off-chain agent) finds the best way to execute this transaction.
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The solver handles everything: routing, settlement, and taking the finality risk.
This approach abstracts away complexity, letting users interact with Ethereum as if it were a single network, rather than multiple fragmented chains.
But really - What even are Intents?
Okay so I’ve read this same explanation way too many times now, and it didn’t really click to me at the start. So I’m going to dive a bit more.
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Simply put, to interact with Ethereum you need to send a transaction. A transaction is a structured message that tells the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) exactly how to execute a state transition.
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You have to manually craft transactions, manage nonces, hold specific assets to pay gas fees, and understand how smart contracts interact. Crafting transactions is not a pleasant job—especially because execution decisions are often made without full information or sophisticated execution strategies. And the thing is users generally don’t think in terms of transactions—they think in outcomes. They don’t worry about approvals, bridging, or contract calls; they just know I have 100 USDC on Base and I want it on Arbitrum. This is the case in marketplaces, DAOs, public goods funding, and more.
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Enter intents. Instead of specifying every step of the execution, users simply sign a message that defines the outcome they want to achieve.
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Then, third-party solvers figure out the best execution path that meets those constraints.
This shift represents a move to a declarative model—where users specify what they want (the intent)—instead of the traditional imperative model, where they must manually define how to execute every step.
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Imperative: Defining how something should be done step by step.
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Declarative: Defining what you want, and the system figures out the best way to do it.
That’s the gist of intents as a concept, and basically the goal here is to make Ethereum feel more unified. Now, let’s talk about what it takes to build intent-based applications.
Building with Intents today: The Need for Better Infrastructure
While intents improve UX, integrating them as a new chain is not straightforward.
Generally there are two main options:
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Partner with an existing intent protocol—This requires custom integrations, technical research & due diligence, and BD negotiations to get your chain supported.
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Build your own solver infrastructure—which means handling liquidity, settlement, rebalancing, and execution costs.
Both of these are hard. While some intent-based infrastructure exists, adoption is slow due to these challenges.
If intents are going to scale, we need common standards & an open, modular framework. This is where the Open Intents Framework comes in.
The Open Intents Framework
The Open Intents Framework is an open-source, modular framework that makes building and deploying intent-based applications easier. Instead of every project needing to build its own intent infrastructure, developers can tap into pre-built tools like composable smart contracts, solvers, and UI templates.
It’s created as a public good, led by contributors from the Ethereum Foundation, Hyperlane, and Bootnode with support from the wider Ethereum ecosystem. The goal of the framework is to make intents open and permissionless for the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Hyperlane provided the initial funding, laying the groundwork for it to become a community-owned and community-funded project.
Now, teams that want to build with intents no longer have to start from zero.
How It Works: What’s in the Framework?
Let’s break it down.
1. Composable Smart Contracts
A set of pre-built smart contracts that define how intents are interpreted, executed, and settled—built on ERC-7683. Developers can integrate these contracts instead of building from scratch.
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ERC-7683: standard for cross-chain Intents on Ethereum.
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It standardizes how cross-chain interactions are expressed as intents. While ERC-7683 standardizes intent creation, it remains flexible in settlement.
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The Open Intents Framework comes with a default implementation for basic limit order swaps and Hyperlane ISM settlement. The core Base7683 contract is modular, meaning it can support different order types and settlement mechanisms (e.g., Arbitrum’s Broadcast Standard).
2. Open-Source Solver Implementation
A TypeScript-based solver that watches on-chain events and processes intents accordingly.
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While most solvers today rely on custom infra, this reference solver provides protocol-independent features.
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Includes indexing, transaction submission, and rebalancing.
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Complements Across Protocol’s reference relayer, making intent execution more robust.
By offering a reference solver, the framework lowers the barrier to entry for teams looking to run solvers without deep infrastructure expertise.
3. UI Template
A pre-built, customizable UI for projects integrating intents.
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Developers can use the template as-is or modify it for their specific use case.
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Reduces front-end development time by providing a functional user interface out of the box.
This makes it easier to launch new intent-based apps without spending weeks on UI development.
Beyond the Framework: Standardization, Settlement & Solver Evolution
The Open Intents Framework is just one piece of the work around intents. Across the Ethereum ecosystem, ongoing work on standards and infrastructure is helping make intents more practical, secure, & scalable.
1. Standards
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Standards like ERC-7683 and RRC-7755 ensure that intents can be executed in a consistent way across different chains and protocols.
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Cross-chain messaging standards like ERC-7786 (by OpenZeppelin/Axelar), ERC-7841 (by Espresso) or ERC-7854 (by Hyperlane) are also helping bring modular verification to intent execution.
2. Intent Settlement Diversity
- The Open Intents Framework includes a default Hyperlane-based settlement option, but it’s built to support alternative mechanisms as well. Hashi’s Oracle Aggregator, Espresso’s confirmation layer, Optimism’s Superchain native interoperability or Arbitrum’s Cross-chain Broadcaster Standard can be easily added to the Base7683 contract as settlement
3. Liquidity Management for Solvers
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For intents to work efficiently, solvers need liquidity. Projects like Everclear are working on automated rebalancing, so that solvers always have access to the capital they need.
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Additionally the Arbitrum Foundation will leverage Nomial for the Arbitrum Universal Intents Engine. Nomial is planning to add a reference solver.
4. Solver Intent Matching
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Right now, intents are submitted on the origin chain, and solvers fulfill them—but this system can be improved.
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Resource locks (where assets are temporarily held) are being explored as a way to improve execution efficiency.
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Uniswap’s The Compact is working on intent routing, ensuring that solvers can quote and fulfill intents efficiently.
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Collaboration between solvers (via platforms like Khalani) could expand solver coverage, making intents more widely available across all blockchains.
5. Better User Interfaces for Intents
- For intents to be widely used, they need to be easily accessible to users. Superbridge is experimenting with lowering the integration barrier, making it easier for wallets and applications to adopt intent-based execution.
6. Reference Solving
- The Eco team released Eco Routes, a framework for apps and chains to access permissionless cross-chain liquidity. They have been exploring how to adapt The Open Intents Framework reference solver to become a canonical solver for it.
End.
With open infrastructure and shared tooling, building intent-based applications is becoming a lot easier. Instead of every project reinventing the wheel, the Open Intents Framework makes integrating intents open and modular.
As intent-based execution becomes more widely adopted, we’ll move toward a unified Ethereum—where users don’t need to think about chains, bridges, or liquidity, and things just work.
Interested? You can head over to The Open Intents Framework to learn more & start building with intents!
If you have any questions, comments or ideas feel free to reach out to me, I’d love to hear from you!
