Hardhat-deploy: Connect build artifacts from the external project

I have an issue with connecting the external artifacts.
In Project A I have deploy and artifacts folders where I keep all the hardhat deployment files and artifacts generated after the first deployment.
In Project B I'm re-using those things by putting that into the hardhat config:

  external: {
    contracts: [
      {
        artifacts: '/contracts/artifacts',
        deploy: '/contracts/deploy',
      },
    ],
  },

Now I run npx hardhat deploy from Project B and see that all the contracts got successfully deployed.
But when I'm trying to interact with any of the deployed contracts I see in the console: Contract call: <UnrecognizedContract>.
Same goes if I separately run the hardhat node first and deploy contracts after. For every deployment, I see in logs <UnrecognizedContract>.

What is the correct way to connect the external hardhat project, so the hardhat node could understand what contracts were deployed?