Smart contract tooling has matured a lot over time.

We have:

• Foundry / Hardhat for builds

• CI pipelines for tests

• Deployment automation

• Frontend CI/CD best practices

But there’s still one fragile integration boundary:

the contract interface layer: ABIs + type bindings.

Most teams still treat these as “generated files someone copies around”.

That’s where drift begins.

This post explains:

• What ABI/interface drift looks like in the real world

• Why it’s a coordination problem (not a discipline problem)

• Why ABIs and bindings should be CI artifacts

• How the interface layer can become infrastructure

• Why this becomes even more critical when AI agents are in the loop

(You can explore GitMyABI at https://gitmyabi.com — this article focuses on the general problem & solution, not purely marketing.)

The Real Problem: Interface Drift

Frontend–contract bugs often look like logic errors.

But many are simply:

• Frontend using an outdated ABI

• Bindings generated from a different commit than deployment

• Staging consuming prod interfaces (or the inverse)

• Proxy upgrades where the interface change wasn’t surfaced

• Wrong package version pulled by CI

• “It works on my branch” mismatches

The key point:

The ABI (and bindings) are the integration contract. If they’re not versioned, hosted, and consumed deterministically, your boundary becomes fragile.

The Communication Problem Between Teams and AI Agents

In practice, this drift is rarely about the ability to generate an ABI.

It’s a coordination problem.

Typical scenario:

Smart Contract Dev:
  "I merged the change."

Frontend Dev:
  "Cool, I’ll update the ABI and type bindings."

Smart Contract Dev:
  "Did you pull the latest?"

Frontend Dev:
  "I think so?"

**→**

Smart Contract Dev:
  "I merged the change."

Frontend Dev:
  "Cool, I’ll update the ABI and type bindings."

Smart Contract Dev:
  "Did you pull the latest?"

Frontend Dev:
  "I think so?"

**→**

Smart Contract Dev:
  "I merged the change."

Frontend Dev:
  "Cool, I’ll update the ABI and type bindings."

Smart Contract Dev:
  "Did you pull the latest?"

Frontend Dev:
  "I think so?"

**→**

Smart Contract Dev:
  "I merged the change."

Frontend Dev:
  "Cool, I’ll update the ABI and type bindings."

Smart Contract Dev:
  "Did you pull the latest?"

Frontend Dev:
  "I think so?"

**→**

The issue is not that ABIs are hard to generate.

It’s that the source of truth is unclear.

The recurring questions:

• Which interface is staging using right now?

• Is it from the last deploy, or just last merge?

• Which branch produced the bindings installed in CI?

• Did the package publish happen, or did someone forget?

• Is the UI using ABI v0.0.41 but the backend deployed v0.0.42?

👉 When the ABI is a file (“a folder in the repo”), responsibility is shared and ambiguous.

👉 When the ABI is an artifact, responsibility becomes structural.

What Changes When Interfaces Become CI Artifacts

Every push produces a versioned, addressable interface package.

Not just an abi.json.

But also:

• Type bindings (e.g., TypeScript, and potentially Go/Java/Rust as your codegen expands)

• Package versions tied to builds

• Deterministic artifact URLs

• Registry publishing (versioned, ideally immutable)

CI turns interfaces into publishable artifacts

The version bump is not manual. It is tied to the CI pipeline:

Push → Build → Extract ABI → Generate Bindings → Publish → Version increment

No developer needs to:

• Copy files

• Commit generated artifacts

• Publish manually

• Coordinate version numbers

The pipeline enforces consistency.

Deterministic Build Identity

Each successful build (manually triggered, or automatically triggered by a git push ) produces:

• A build ID

• A commit SHA association

• A branch association

• A package version (sequential)

• A checksum/manifest

• Stable artifact URLs

Example:

🚨 Those artifacts 👆 should be retrievable later exactly as published: no edits, no overwrites.)

Frontend no longer asks:

“Which ABI should I use?”

It references either:

• a specific build, or

• a branch snapshot (staging/main), or

• the latest successful build for an environment

Explicit Environment Mapping

Instead of implicit coordination:

This mapping becomes explicit in configuration.

No manual copying.

No guessing.

No “did you update it?”

Immutable npm registry for Web3 interfaces

In Web3, ABI + type bindings packages are part of the trust surface, not just developer convenience. If interface packages can be changed or disappear, you lose the ability to prove what a dApp actually used.

An immutable registry enables:

• Reproducibility: rebuild the same app later with the exact same interfaces.

• Auditability: trace “this UI build consumed this interface version” without ambiguity.

• Supply-chain resilience: prevent silent swaps of packages that shape approvals, transfers, and signatures.

That’s why the industry should treat interface packages as append-only, verifiable artifacts, ideally backed by immutable storage (e.g., NeoFS) while still supporting a fully npm-compatible install flow.

Once interfaces are produced and published deterministically, consumers stop syncing files and start pinning versions.

Putting it Together: Architecture Overview

Traditional Flow:

Automated Flow:

The integration boundary becomes explicit and versioned.

This isn’t only about tooling — it’s about coordination. When interfaces are published as versioned artifacts, teams stop syncing files manually and start consuming a single source of truth.

Why This Matters Even More for AI Agents

Humans are already bad at “which ABI is the right one?”

AI agents will be worse, unless the interface layer is machine-addressable.

If you want agents to build dApps reliably, they need:

• the correct ABI for the target environment

• the correct type bindings to avoid hallucinating signatures

• a stable lookup mechanism (through MCP):

  • “give me the latest successful build for staging”

  • “give me interfaces for commit ffaabbcc”

  • “give me the package that matches deployment X”

So the next step is not just “ABIs as artifacts”, it’s:

interfaces as an AI-consumable contract catalog.

That unlocks workflows like:

• an agent generates a frontend, installs @org/contracts@0.0.42, and ships

• an agent upgrades code when contracts change, guided by typed diffs

• an agent picks the correct interfaces automatically for staging vs prod

In other words:

Developer Experience (DevEx) isn’t dead, but it’s evolving into Agent Experience (AgentEx). And the interface layer is where the leverage is.

This is where standards like MCP / ERC-8004 / x402 become relevant: discovery, identity, and payment rails.

Final Thoughts

Most teams eventually reinvent this:

• sync scripts

• CI guards

• version bump automation

• artifact publishing

• “which ABI is staging using?” dashboards

What devs (humans) and AI Agents (robots) need is a standardized and dedicated interface CI/CD layer with:

• deterministic builds

• canonical artifacts

• npm bindings as first-class outputs

• private/public publishing

• explicit environment mapping

• a foundation for AI/agent-ready consumption (MCP + ERC-8004 + x402)

The interface layer becomes infrastructure, not a folder someone remembers to update.

If you’re curious and want to give it a try, we built this, and you can sign up for free at:

👉 https://gitmyabi.com

Author: Guil. Sperb Machado, Ph.D.
CEO & Builder @ AxLabs