The manifest: how the chain knows your ABI

Your .py file is the code. The manifest declares what the outside world may call, and with what types.

A deployable contract is two files:

mycontract/
  contract.py      # the code
  manifest.json    # the ABI and metadata

The manifest names your functions and their types. Here is a real one, trimmed from the Animica token standard:

{
  "name": "Counter",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "language": "python-vm",
  "source": { "path": "contract.py" },
  "abi": {
    "events": [
      {"name": "Incremented",
       "fields": [{"name": "by", "type": "int"}, {"name": "value", "type": "int"}]}
    ],
    "functions": [
      {"name": "init",
       "stateMutability": "nonpayable",
       "inputs": [{"name": "owner", "type": "bytes"}],
       "outputs": []},
      {"name": "inc",
       "stateMutability": "nonpayable",
       "inputs": [{"name": "by", "type": "int"}],
       "outputs": [{"type": "int"}]},
      {"name": "get",
       "stateMutability": "view",
       "inputs": [],
       "outputs": [{"type": "int"}]}
    ]
  }
}