TL;DR
- The Open Intents Framework (OIF) is the solution to unify Ethereum’s fragmented cross-chain landscape.
- Led by the Ethereum Foundation, Hyperlane, Bootnode, and with support from major L2s, OIF provides a standardized way to build intent-based applications.
- With OIF, developers can build cross-chain applications without worrying about bridging, execution risks, or fragmented liquidity.
In the multi-chain world we live in today, building cross-chain applications is hard. Developers have to deal with bridging, liquidity fragmentation, execution risks, and settlement delays — all of which make both user and developer experience complex.
The Open Intents Framework (OIF) was built to solve this. Led by the Ethereum Foundation, Hyperlane, Bootnode, and supported by major L2s, OIF provides a shared, open-source framework for building intent-based applications.
This post breaks down what OIF is, why Ethereum needs a shared intent framework, and how developers can start using it today.
Why do we even need Intents?
Ethereum’s scaling journey has led to great progress — rollups, L2s, and alternative execution environments have expanded what’s possible. But with that comes a challenge: fragmentation
Today, developers building cross-chain apps face major challenges:
- Bridging complexity → Users manually move assets between chains.
- Liquidity fragmentation → Swaps and transfers require routing across multiple chains.
- Settlement delays → Users wait for finality across different chains.
- Asset minting limitations → Not all assets can be minted across chains by messaging protocols.
Intents offer a way to abstract these complexities. Instead of requiring users to specify each step of a transaction — like approving contracts, bridging assets, and submitting transactions across multiple chains — intents allow them to define their goal upfront. Solvers (specialized off-chain agents) then determine the optimal path and execute the necessary transactions.
However, building with intents has historically been difficult. Developers either had to partner with an intent protocol (limiting flexibility) or build their own intent infrastructure (which is complex and time-consuming).
That’s where the Open Intents Framework (OIF) comes in.
The Open Intents Framework: A Shared Standard for Intents
OIF is a shared framework designed to make building with intents easier. Instead of developers having to build their own intent infrastructure or rely on proprietary solutions, OIF provides open-source, modular tooling to integrate intent-based execution seamlessly.
What makes the framework important?
- Backed by key Ethereum contributors → Led by Ethereum Foundation, Hyperlane and Bootnode, with support from major L2s, OIF is built as a public good for the ecosystem.
- Standardized intent execution → OIF provides a structured way to express and execute intents across chains, making interoperability easier.
- Shared infrastructure, not custom builds → Developers don’t need to create intent-based applications from scratch — they can tap into existing, open-source components.
Worth noting that, there have been many past initiatives that have aimed to standardize interoperability in Ethereum, but they often stopped at defining specifications. The key difference with OIF is that it doesn’t just propose a standard — it provides the open-source code to implement it.
OIF removes complexity for developers by offering modular, open-source tools to handle intent creation, execution, and settlement — ensuring that intents isn’t just defined as a spec, but actually usable from day one.
What’s Inside the Open Intents Framework?
Now that we covered the basics, let’s talk about what the framework is made up of.
There are three main components: Composable Smart Contracts, an Open-Source Solver Implementation, and a UI Template. These building blocks provide the necessary infrastructure to create, process, and interact with intents.
1. Composable Smart Contracts
At the core of the framework consists of a set of pre-built smart contracts that define how intents are expressed and executed. The Base7683 contract, which establishes a standardized way to create intents, supports multiple settlement paths. The OIF comes with a default implementation of basic limit order swaps and Hyperlane ISM settlement.
Developers can extend the Base7683 contract to define custom swap logic or integrate their own settlement mechanisms, for their specific use case.
2. Open-Source Solver Implementation
The framework includes an open-source TypeScript based solver, that acts as the backbone of intent fulfillment. The solver continuously monitors intent submissions, determining the most efficient way to execute them. The implementation provides protocol-independent features — such as indexing, transaction submission, and rebalancing — allowing developers to customize and adapt to their specific needs.
Developers can use the solver implementation as a foundation, modifying it to support custom execution logic, integrate their own liquidity sources, or deploy it across multiple chains.
3. UI Template for Developers
To simplify front-end development, the framework provides a pre-built UI template.
Instead of building an interface from scratch, developers can use the template as a starting point. The UI template is highly customizable, so that teams can modify it for their specific use cases.
We saw how useful this was with the Hyperlane Warp UI Template — it made it easier for teams to integrate cross-chain functionality without spending too much time on UI work. That experience is exactly why OIF includes a ready-to-use template, so developers can hit the ground running.
Looking Ahead: Scaling Intents with Open Infrastructure
The Open Intents Framework is one part of a larger movement to standardize and scale intent-based execution. While standards define interoperability, adoption depends on practical implementation. OIF helps bridge this gap by providing the necessary tooling to make intent-based applications work in practice.
- Standards like ERC-7683 & RRC-7755 → These standards define a common structure for intents. OIF adds another layer by providing the framework to make them easily adapted.
- Solver coordination efforts (Khalani, Uniswap’s The Compact) → Solvers are essential to executing intents efficiently. OIF offers an open-source solver implementation, allowing teams to bootstrap solver networks and integrate with existing ones.
- Liquidity solutions (Everclear, Nomial) → Cross-chain execution requires liquidity. OIF enables settlement layers to integrate with liquidity providers, ensuring solvers have the capital they need to fulfill intents.
- Better user interfaces (Superbridge) → OIF provides a pre-built UI template thats easily customizable to make intent-based apps easier for developers to build and deploy.
- Reference Solving(Eco Routes) → A framework for permissionless cross-chain liquidity routing. OIF creates a shared infrastructure that solvers can use to access liquidity across multiple chains.
As intent-based execution becomes more widely adopted, we’re moving toward an Ethereum where users don’t have to think about chains, bridges, or liquidity — things just work.
Time to Build with Intents
Intents are reshaping how users interact with Ethereum. With the Open Intents Framework, developers no longer need to build everything from scratch — shared infrastructure makes it easier than ever to build intent-based applications.
And with Hyperlane powering permissionless settlement, intent-based applications can function across multiple chains while remaining secure, decentralized, and modular.
The OIF is already live and open-source, so start building: openintents.xyz
More about Hyperlane
Hyperlane is the open interoperability framework. It empowers developers to connect anywhere onchain and build applications that can easily and securely communicate between multiple blockchains. Importantly, Hyperlane is fully open-source and always permissionless to build with.
