Programming Model

Bump Seed

A single byte (255 down to 0) appended to PDA seeds to push the derived address off the Ed25519 curve. find_program_address tries bump=255 first and decrements until finding a valid PDA. The first valid bump found is the canonical bump. Always store and reuse the canonical bump to avoid security issues.

IDbumpAliasCanonical Bump

Plain meaning

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A single byte (255 down to 0) appended to PDA seeds to push the derived address off the Ed25519 curve. find_program_address tries bump=255 first and decrements until finding a valid PDA. The first valid bump found is the canonical bump. Always store and reuse the canonical bump to avoid security issues.

Mental model

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Technical context

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Accounts, instructions, PDAs, transactions, and execution flow.

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Bump Seed (bump)
Category: Programming Model
Definition: A single byte (255 down to 0) appended to PDA seeds to push the derived address off the Ed25519 curve. find_program_address tries bump=255 first and decrements until finding a valid PDA. The first valid bump found is the canonical bump. Always store and reuse the canonical bump to avoid security issues.
Aliases: Canonical Bump
Related: Program Derived Address (PDA), Seeds
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Branch

Program Derived Address (PDA)

An account address derived deterministically from a program ID and a set of seeds, with no corresponding private key. PDAs are created by finding a pubkey that does NOT lie on the Ed25519 curve (using a bump seed). Since there's no private key, only the deriving program can sign for the PDA via invoke_signed, making PDAs ideal for program-controlled state.

Branch

Seeds

Byte arrays used as inputs to derive a Program Derived Address. Seeds can be any combination of static strings, user pubkeys, mint addresses, or other identifiers (each seed max 32 bytes, up to 16 seeds). For example, seeds=[b'vault', user.key()] derives a unique vault PDA for each user.

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Programming Model

Program Derived Address (PDA)

An account address derived deterministically from a program ID and a set of seeds, with no corresponding private key. PDAs are created by finding a pubkey that does NOT lie on the Ed25519 curve (using a bump seed). Since there's no private key, only the deriving program can sign for the PDA via invoke_signed, making PDAs ideal for program-controlled state.

Programming Model

Seeds

Byte arrays used as inputs to derive a Program Derived Address. Seeds can be any combination of static strings, user pubkeys, mint addresses, or other identifiers (each seed max 32 bytes, up to 16 seeds). For example, seeds=[b'vault', user.key()] derives a unique vault PDA for each user.

Programming Model

Clock Sysvar

A sysvar (address: SysvarC1ock11111111111111111111111111111111) that provides the current slot, epoch, unix_timestamp, and leader_schedule_epoch. Programs use Clock to implement time-based logic like lockups or vesting schedules. In Anchor, accessed via `Clock::get()` or as a sysvar account in the accounts struct.

Programming Model

Buffer Account

A temporary account used during Solana program deployment to hold the program's ELF binary before it is written to the program data account. The deployer creates a buffer account, uploads the compiled SBF binary in chunks via the Upgradeable BPF Loader's Write instruction, and then issues a Deploy or Upgrade instruction that copies the buffer contents to the final program data account. Buffer accounts can be closed after deployment to reclaim rent.

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Programming Modelpda

Program Derived Address (PDA)

An account address derived deterministically from a program ID and a set of seeds, with no corresponding private key. PDAs are created by finding a pubkey that does NOT lie on the Ed25519 curve (using a bump seed). Since there's no private key, only the deriving program can sign for the PDA via invoke_signed, making PDAs ideal for program-controlled state.

Programming Modelseeds

Seeds

Byte arrays used as inputs to derive a Program Derived Address. Seeds can be any combination of static strings, user pubkeys, mint addresses, or other identifiers (each seed max 32 bytes, up to 16 seeds). For example, seeds=[b'vault', user.key()] derives a unique vault PDA for each user.

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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.

Programming Model

Program

Executable code deployed on-chain, equivalent to a smart contract on other blockchains. Programs are stateless—they store no data themselves but read/write data in separate accounts they own. Programs are compiled to SBF bytecode and loaded via the BPF Loader. Every program has a unique Program ID (its account's public key).

Programming Model

Instruction

A single operation within a transaction that invokes a program. An instruction specifies: (1) the program ID to call, (2) an array of account metas (pubkey, is_signer, is_writable), and (3) an opaque data byte array. Programs decode the instruction data to determine which operation to perform.

Programming Model

Transaction

An atomic unit of execution containing one or more instructions, a recent blockhash, and one or more signatures. All instructions in a transaction execute sequentially and atomically—if any instruction fails, the entire transaction reverts. Transactions have a 1,232-byte size limit (matching IPv6 MTU) and a default 200,000 CU budget.