Glossary OS

Plain meaning

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A WebSocket subscription method that pushes a notification to the client every time the data or lamport balance of a specified account changes, delivering the updated AccountInfo payload at the configured commitment level. It is commonly used by UIs to reactively update token balances, NFT ownership, or program state without polling, and each subscription is referenced by a numeric subscription ID returned upon successful registration.

Mental model

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Technical context

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RPCs, validators, snapshots, indexing, and network plumbing.

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accountSubscribe (account-subscribe)
Category: Infrastructure
Definition: A WebSocket subscription method that pushes a notification to the client every time the data or lamport balance of a specified account changes, delivering the updated AccountInfo payload at the configured commitment level. It is commonly used by UIs to reactively update token balances, NFT ownership, or program state without polling, and each subscription is referenced by a numeric subscription ID returned upon successful registration.
Related: WebSocket Subscriptions, Account

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Concept graph

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These branches show which concepts this term touches directly and what sits one layer beyond them.

Branch

WebSocket Subscriptions

A persistent bidirectional connection to a Solana RPC node's WebSocket endpoint (typically on port 8900) that allows clients to receive real-time push notifications when on-chain state changes, rather than polling via HTTP. The subscription model supports account changes, program account changes, slot updates, root changes, signature confirmations, and log emission, each returning a subscription ID used to later unsubscribe.

RPC (Remote Procedure Call)logsSubscribe

Open term

Branch

Account

The fundamental data storage unit on Solana. Every piece of state is stored in an account identified by a 32-byte public key. Accounts hold a lamport balance, an owner program, a data byte array (up to 10MB), and an executable flag. Only the owning program can modify an account's data, but anyone can credit lamports to it.

Public Key (Pubkey)Lamport

Open term

Next concepts to explore

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Infrastructure

WebSocket Subscriptions

A persistent bidirectional connection to a Solana RPC node's WebSocket endpoint (typically on port 8900) that allows clients to receive real-time push notifications when on-chain state changes, rather than polling via HTTP. The subscription model supports account changes, program account changes, slot updates, root changes, signature confirmations, and log emission, each returning a subscription ID used to later unsubscribe.

Open term

Programming Model

Account

The fundamental data storage unit on Solana. Every piece of state is stored in an account identified by a 32-byte public key. Accounts hold a lamport balance, an owner program, a data byte array (up to 10MB), and an executable flag. Only the owning program can modify an account's data, but anyone can credit lamports to it.

Open term

Infrastructure

Arweave

A decentralized permanent storage protocol that uses a blockchain-like structure called the blockweave and a one-time upfront payment model (no recurring fees) to store data indefinitely, backed by an endowment mechanism. In the Solana ecosystem, Arweave is the dominant off-chain storage layer for NFT metadata JSON and media files, and is used by Metaplex's Bundlr/Irys integration to upload assets cheaply in bulk before minting, with URIs of the form ar://<txid> or https://arweave.net/<txid> stored in on-chain metadata accounts.

Open term

Infrastructure

Account Filter (memcmp / dataSize)

Optional filter objects passed to getProgramAccounts that narrow results by comparing raw bytes in account data. A memcmp filter specifies a byte offset and an expected bytes value (base58 or base64 encoded), enabling field-level matching such as filtering all token accounts by a specific mint address; a dataSize filter restricts results to accounts whose data length equals an exact byte count. Combining both filters is the standard pattern for efficiently querying discriminated Anchor accounts or specific SPL token account sets.

Open term

Commonly confused with

Terms nearby in vocabulary, acronym, or conceptual neighborhood.

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Infrastructurearweave

Arweave

A decentralized permanent storage protocol that uses a blockchain-like structure called the blockweave and a one-time upfront payment model (no recurring fees) to store data indefinitely, backed by an endowment mechanism. In the Solana ecosystem, Arweave is the dominant off-chain storage layer for NFT metadata JSON and media files, and is used by Metaplex's Bundlr/Irys integration to upload assets cheaply in bulk before minting, with URIs of the form ar://<txid> or https://arweave.net/<txid> stored in on-chain metadata accounts.

Open term

Infrastructureaccount-filter

Account Filter (memcmp / dataSize)

Optional filter objects passed to getProgramAccounts that narrow results by comparing raw bytes in account data. A memcmp filter specifies a byte offset and an expected bytes value (base58 or base64 encoded), enabling field-level matching such as filtering all token accounts by a specific mint address; a dataSize filter restricts results to accounts whose data length equals an exact byte count. Combining both filters is the standard pattern for efficiently querying discriminated Anchor accounts or specific SPL token account sets.

Open term

Related terms

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Infrastructurewebsocket

WebSocket Subscriptions

A persistent bidirectional connection to a Solana RPC node's WebSocket endpoint (typically on port 8900) that allows clients to receive real-time push notifications when on-chain state changes, rather than polling via HTTP. The subscription model supports account changes, program account changes, slot updates, root changes, signature confirmations, and log emission, each returning a subscription ID used to later unsubscribe.

Open term

Programming Modelaccount

Account

The fundamental data storage unit on Solana. Every piece of state is stored in an account identified by a 32-byte public key. Accounts hold a lamport balance, an owner program, a data byte array (up to 10MB), and an executable flag. Only the owning program can modify an account's data, but anyone can credit lamports to it.

Open term

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Infrastructure

RPC (Remote Procedure Call)

The JSON-RPC 2.0 protocol interface through which clients communicate with Solana nodes to query chain state, submit transactions, and subscribe to events. Solana exposes a rich set of HTTP and WebSocket endpoints (e.g., getAccountInfo, sendTransaction) that abstract direct peer-to-peer network participation, making RPC the primary integration point for wallets, dApps, and indexers.

Open term

Infrastructure

RPC Node

A Solana full node that stores ledger state and serves JSON-RPC and WebSocket requests from clients without participating in consensus or voting. RPC nodes must replay every transaction to maintain an accurate account state database, and high-throughput deployments typically run dedicated RPC nodes with large SSDs, high RAM (256 GB+), and high-bandwidth network connections to handle concurrent client load without impacting validator performance.

Open term

Infrastructure

RPC Methods

The enumerated JSON-RPC endpoints exposed by Solana nodes, covering account queries (getAccountInfo, getMultipleAccounts, getProgramAccounts), block and transaction retrieval (getBlock, getTransaction), cluster metadata (getEpochInfo, getSlot, getVersion), and transaction submission (sendTransaction, simulateTransaction). Methods accept a Commitment parameter (processed, confirmed, finalized) to control the recency-vs-safety tradeoff of returned data.

Open term

Infrastructure

getAccountInfo

An RPC method that returns the complete on-chain state of a single account identified by its base-58 public key, including its lamport balance, owner program, executable flag, rent epoch, and raw data payload encoded as base64 or base58. It is the most fundamental read primitive in Solana development and is called at the specified commitment level, with the data field being null if the account does not exist.

Open term