Pimlico Account Abstraction Integration

Pimlico is an account abstraction (AA) infrastructure provider. With Pimlico, you can integrate smart accounts and gasless transactions into your Sei dApps. This guide shows how to use Pimlico’s infrastructure to create a smart account and send your first gasless transaction on Sei Testnet.

Getting started

Dependencies

To integrate Pimlico into your Sei dApp, install these dependencies:

pnpm install permissionless viem dotenv

permissionless.js is an AA SDK that works with any account, paymaster, or bundler implementation. It does not lock you in to one vendor.

Setting up Pimlico dashboard

Before you start the integration:

Go to the Pimlico dashboard.
Create an account. Then generate an API key.
Store your API key in a .env file:

PIMLICO_API_KEY='pim_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'

Configuring Pimlico client

First, set up the necessary clients and configurations.

import { createSmartAccountClient } from 'permissionless';
import { createPimlicoClient } from 'permissionless/clients/pimlico';
import { createPublicClient, http, Hex } from 'viem';
import { privateKeyToAccount, generatePrivateKey } from 'viem/accounts';
import { seiTestnet } from 'viem/chains';
import { toSimpleSmartAccount } from 'permissionless/accounts';
import { writeFileSync } from 'fs';
import 'dotenv/config';

const apiKey = process.env.PIMLICO_API_KEY;
if (!apiKey) throw new Error('Missing PIMLICO_API_KEY');

// Generate or load private key
const privateKey =
  process.env.PRIVATE_KEY ??
  (() => {
    const pk = generatePrivateKey();
    writeFileSync('.env', `PRIVATE_KEY=${pk}`);
    return pk;
  })();

// Create public client
export const publicClient = createPublicClient({
  chain: seiTestnet,
  transport: http('https://evm-rpc-testnet.sei-apis.com')
});

// Create Pimlico client
const pimlicoUrl = `https://api.pimlico.io/v2/${seiTestnet.id}/rpc?apikey=${apiKey}`;

export const pimlicoClient = createPimlicoClient({
  chain: seiTestnet,
  transport: http(pimlicoUrl)
});

Creating a smart account

Next, create a simple smart account instance. A single EOA signer controls this account:

import { toSimpleSmartAccount } from 'permissionless/accounts';

const account = await toSimpleSmartAccount({
  client: publicClient,
  owner: privateKeyToAccount(privateKey as Hex)
});

console.log(`Smart account address: ${account.address}`);

For the full list of smart account types that permissionless.js supports, see the smart account comparison.

Setting up the smart account client

To interact with the smart account, create a SmartAccountClient:

import { createSmartAccountClient } from 'permissionless';

const smartAccountClient = createSmartAccountClient({
  account,
  chain: seiTestnet,
  bundlerTransport: http(pimlicoUrl),
  paymaster: pimlicoClient,
  userOperation: {
    estimateFeesPerGas: async () => {
      return (await pimlicoClient.getUserOperationGasPrice()).fast;
    }
  }
});

Sending a gasless transaction

When the setup is complete, you can send a gasless transaction from your smart account:

const txHash = await smartAccountClient.sendTransaction({
  to: '0xd8da6bf26964af9d7eed9e03e53415d37aa96045',
  value: 0n,
  data: '0x1234'
});

console.log(`Transaction included: ${txHash}`);
return txHash;

Complete example

This complete example combines all of the steps:

import { createSmartAccountClient } from 'permissionless';
import { createPimlicoClient } from 'permissionless/clients/pimlico';
import { privateKeyToAccount, generatePrivateKey } from 'viem/accounts';
import { createPublicClient, http, Hex } from 'viem';
import { seiTestnet } from 'viem/chains';
import { toSimpleSmartAccount } from 'permissionless/accounts';
import { writeFileSync } from 'fs';
import 'dotenv/config';

async function main() {
  // Initialize clients and account
  const apiKey = process.env.PIMLICO_API_KEY;
  if (!apiKey) throw new Error('Missing PIMLICO_API_KEY');

  // Generate or load private key
  const privateKey =
    process.env.PRIVATE_KEY ??
    (() => {
      const pk = generatePrivateKey();
      writeFileSync('.env', `PRIVATE_KEY=${pk}`);
      return pk;
    })();

  // Create public client
  const publicClient = createPublicClient({
    chain: seiTestnet,
    transport: http('https://evm-rpc-testnet.sei-apis.com')
  });

  // Create Pimlico client
  const pimlicoUrl = `https://api.pimlico.io/v2/${seiTestnet.id}/rpc?apikey=${apiKey}`;

  const pimlicoClient = createPimlicoClient({
    chain: seiTestnet,
    transport: http(pimlicoUrl)
  });

  // Create smart account
  const account = await toSimpleSmartAccount({
    client: publicClient,
    owner: privateKeyToAccount(privateKey as Hex)
  });

  console.log(`Smart account address: ${account.address}`);

  // Create smart account client
  const smartAccountClient = createSmartAccountClient({
    account,
    chain: seiTestnet,
    bundlerTransport: http(pimlicoUrl),
    paymaster: pimlicoClient,
    userOperation: {
      estimateFeesPerGas: async () => {
        return (await pimlicoClient.getUserOperationGasPrice()).fast;
      }
    }
  });

  // Send transaction
  const txHash = await smartAccountClient.sendTransaction({
    to: '0xd8da6bf26964af9d7eed9e03e53415d37aa96045',
    value: 0n,
    data: '0x1234'
  });

  console.log(`Transaction included: ${txHash}`);
}

main().catch(console.error);

What’s happening under the hood?

When you send a transaction with the smart account client:

The client builds a user operation (a transaction format for smart accounts).
The client requests sponsorship from Pimlico’s paymaster.
The client signs the operation with the private key of the smart account owner.
The client submits the operation to Pimlico’s bundler.
The bundler monitors the chain until the operation is included in a block.

If your smart account contract is not deployed yet, the first transaction also deploys it.

Conclusion

This guide showed how to:

Set up Pimlico’s infrastructure
Create a smart account
Send gasless transactions

With this implementation, users do not need to handle gas or manage native tokens to interact with your dApp. For more information about Pimlico and its features, see these resources:

To get help and share what you build, join the Pimlico Telegram community.

Overview

Essentials

seid CLI

Frontend Development

Smart Contracts

sei-js Library

Videos

Ecosystem Tutorials

Reference

Hardware Wallets

Pimlico Account Abstraction Integration

Getting started

Dependencies

Setting up Pimlico dashboard

Configuring Pimlico client

Creating a smart account

Setting up the smart account client

Sending a gasless transaction

Complete example

What’s happening under the hood?

Conclusion

​Getting started

​Dependencies

​Setting up Pimlico dashboard

​Configuring Pimlico client

​Creating a smart account

​Setting up the smart account client

​Sending a gasless transaction

​Complete example

​What’s happening under the hood?

​Conclusion

Getting started

Dependencies

Setting up Pimlico dashboard

Configuring Pimlico client

Creating a smart account

Setting up the smart account client

Sending a gasless transaction

Complete example

What’s happening under the hood?

Conclusion