Solana guide library
How Solana transactions and programs work
Use the account and transaction models as the starting point. They explain which program can change data, which signer authorises an action and why one transaction can invoke several programs.
Read the account and transaction models
- How Solana works
Follow an application action through account state, program instructions, parallel execution and current consensus. Includes independent-transfer and shared-pool examples.
- Inside a transaction
Understand what you sign, how instructions use accounts and why execution is atomic. Read a transfer message and follow success, failure and finality.
- Owner and authority
Understand program ownership, user authority and transaction signatures. Read the permissions of a token holding, mint and stake account through concrete examples.
- Read a Solana explorer
Read execution status, programs, instructions and balance changes. Work through a payment, a swap and a failed transaction without guessing from the headline.
- Solana fees explained
Calculate base and priority fees, understand compute units and account funding, then reconcile the total SOL change in a transfer or swap.
Follow tokens and program calls
- Token accounts and ATAs
Follow a wallet’s token holdings across mints and accounts. Learn ATA derivation, creation funding, multiple holdings and eligible closure.
- Token programs and extensions
Read a token’s owning program, enabled extensions and controlling authorities. Work through a transfer-fee example and assess application compatibility.
- Program derived addresses
Understand PDA seeds, bumps, account creation and invoke_signed. See why the deriving program, data owner and token authority can be different.
- Cross-program invocations
Follow a token-vault withdrawal through a cross-program invocation. Understand account privileges, PDA signing, compute and transaction rollback.
Build and diagnose a transaction
- First devnet program
Create the Anchor counter, understand its PDA and authority checks, build and test it, then deploy and invoke it with an inspectable client.
- Transaction versions and ALTs
Compare legacy, v0 and v1 messages. Understand how lookup tables save address space and how builders, wallets and readers need to support each format.
- Blockhash expiry and nonces
Track an ordinary transaction with its blockhash and last-valid block height. Understand delayed signing, endpoint mismatch and durable nonce validity.
- Program logs and errors
Locate a failed instruction, follow nested program calls and map a custom error to the correct program version. Separate simulation evidence from accepted execution.
- Governance and upgrade authority
Map code upgrades, parameter changes and asset controls. Understand loader records, multisig thresholds and the actual execution of governance decisions.