Smart contracts

Build, test, analyze and deploy Solidity and Solana programs from one panel, with a local chain, readable ABIs and agents that know contract security.

Press ⌘⇧K (or Contracts: Open panel in the command palette) in any terminal inside a contract project.

Supported toolchains

ADE finds the project from the terminal’s current folder, looking upwards for its config file, so it works from any subfolder.

Dependencies (lib/, node_modules/), tests and scripts are left out of the lists, so you only see your own contracts.

Actions

• Build, test and analysis run in the active terminal, from the project root, wherever you’ve cd‘d to.
• The local chain starts in its own tab, so it keeps running while you work.
• Actions whose tool isn’t installed are greyed out; the Tools list shows what’s installed and which version.

The command palette has quick versions too: Contracts: Build, Contracts: Test, Contracts: Test with gas report, Contracts: Coverage, Contracts: Analyze with Slither and Contracts: Start local chain.

Workbench

For Foundry projects, Open workbench in the panel (or Contracts: Open workbench in the command palette) opens a tab for the project where you can compile, run tests one at a time, and deploy to and call contracts on a local chain without typing commands.

Compile and test

• Compile runs forge build. Errors and warnings are listed inline, and each file:line:col opens the file.
• Every test function is listed under its test contract. ▶ Run runs just that test, Run N runs one contract’s tests, and Run all runs them all. Filter by name at the top.
• Each test shows pass or fail, its gas (the median for fuzz tests) and its fuzz runs. A failing test shows its reason, the counterexample and any console.log output.
• Traces reruns one test with -vvvv in a new terminal tab.

Deploy and call on a local chain

The Deploy & call view works against Anvil at http://127.0.0.1:8545. Start Anvil starts it in its own tab.

1. Pick an Anvil account, a contract and its constructor arguments (plus a value if the constructor is payable), then Deploy.
2. Each deployed contract lists its functions. Blue buttons are reads (cast call) and orange ones are writes (cast send).
3. Values accept wei or units such as 3ether and 2gwei. Large numbers get an ETH hint.
4. Writes show the transaction status, its gas and its events decoded against the ABI. Reverts are decoded too: custom errors are shown with their argument names, along with Error(string) and panics such as arithmetic overflow.

The workbench keeps each project’s results and deployed contracts while you switch tabs.

Local chain only. The workbench sends transactions only to 127.0.0.1 or localhost, and only from Anvil’s unlocked accounts. It rejects private keys, mnemonics, keystores, hardware wallets and --broadcast, and it never runs forge or cast through a shell. Deploys to real networks go through Deploying safely.

Deploying safely

Deploy actions type the command into the terminal without running it, so you can check the network and account and then press Enter:

forge script script/Deploy.s.sol --rpc-url "$RPC_URL" --account deployer --broadcast

ADE never asks for, stores or syncs a private key. Foundry deploys use an encrypted keystore account, create one once with:

cast wallet import deployer --interactive

Set RPC_URL in your shell (or use a name from [rpc_endpoints] in foundry.toml). Hardhat deploys use --network from your Hardhat config, and Anchor uses your Solana CLI wallet.

ABI viewer

Open any compiled artifact (from the panel’s ABIs list, the file browser, or a path printed in the terminal) and it shows the contract’s interface instead of raw JSON:

• Read functions (view/pure) and Write functions, with inputs, outputs and payable
• Events with their indexed parameters and topic hash
• Errors with their selectors
• Click a selector to copy it; filter by name at the top

Selectors are computed with keccak-256 exactly as the EVM does, so you can match them against calldata or a revert. Source switches back to the JSON.

Anchor IDLs open the same way, listing each instruction with its arguments and accounts (marked mut and signer) and the program’s error codes.

Editing contracts

.sol files open with Solidity syntax highlighting. Compiler errors such as --> src/Vault.sol:42:5 are clickable in the terminal and open the file.

Web3 agents

The agent picker (⌘⇧A ) has a Web3 category:

Describing a task (“audit the vault for reentrancy”, “write an ERC-20 with fuzz tests”) suggests the right one.

You don’t have to start them by hand. When ADE opens a Foundry or Hardhat project, project setup adds the engineer, auditor, gas optimizer and Web3 DevOps engineer to .claude/agents/, so Claude Code can delegate to them; Anchor projects get the Solana/Anchor engineer, auditor, Web3 DevOps engineer and senior Rust engineer. The DeFi, tokenomics, contract systems, Web3 infrastructure, cross-chain and AI x Web3 architects are in the picker’s Architects category.

Installing the tools

curl -L https://foundry.paradigm.xyz | bash && foundryup   # Foundry: forge, cast, anvil
pipx install slither-analyzer                              # Slither (needs solc or Foundry)
cargo install aderyn                                       # Aderyn

For Solana, install the Solana CLI and Anchor. ADE looks for tools in ~/.foundry/bin, ~/.avm/bin, the Solana install folder and your shell’s PATH.