The practice of developing and testing Solana programs against a local validator (solana-test-validator) or in-process test harness (Bankrun, LiteSVM). Local development allows instant transaction confirmation, free airdrops, account cloning from mainnet, and rapid debugging. Programs are deployed locally before moving to devnet for integration testing.
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The practice of developing and testing Solana programs against a local validator (solana-test-validator) or in-process test harness (Bankrun, LiteSVM). Local development allows instant transaction confirmation, free airdrops, account cloning from mainnet, and rapid debugging. Programs are deployed locally before moving to devnet for integration testing.
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Anchor, local validators, explorers, SDKs, and testing workflows.
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Local Development (Localnet) (local-development) Category: Developer Tools Definition: The practice of developing and testing Solana programs against a local validator (solana-test-validator) or in-process test harness (Bankrun, LiteSVM). Local development allows instant transaction confirmation, free airdrops, account cloning from mainnet, and rapid debugging. Programs are deployed locally before moving to devnet for integration testing. Aliases: Localnet Related: solana-test-validator, Bankrun (solana-bankrun)
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A lightweight local Solana validator for development. Runs a single-node cluster on localhost:8899 (RPC) and localhost:8900 (WebSocket). Supports `--clone` to copy mainnet accounts, `--bpf-program` to load programs, and `--reset` to clear state. Processes transactions instantly without PoH delays. Useful for rapid iteration but doesn't simulate network conditions.
A fast Solana testing framework (solana-bankrun for TypeScript, bankrun for Rust) that runs tests against an in-process Bank without starting a full validator. Bankrun processes transactions ~100x faster than solana-test-validator, supports time warping (advance slots/time), and can load accounts from fixtures or mainnet snapshots.
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A lightweight local Solana validator for development. Runs a single-node cluster on localhost:8899 (RPC) and localhost:8900 (WebSocket). Supports `--clone` to copy mainnet accounts, `--bpf-program` to load programs, and `--reset` to clear state. Processes transactions instantly without PoH delays. Useful for rapid iteration but doesn't simulate network conditions.
A fast Solana testing framework (solana-bankrun for TypeScript, bankrun for Rust) that runs tests against an in-process Bank without starting a full validator. Bankrun processes transactions ~100x faster than solana-test-validator, supports time warping (advance slots/time), and can load accounts from fixtures or mainnet snapshots.
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The most popular framework for building Solana programs in Rust. Anchor provides macros (#[program], #[account], #[derive(Accounts)]) that auto-generate boilerplate for account validation, serialization, discriminators, and error handling. It includes a CLI (anchor init/build/test/deploy), IDL generation, and TypeScript client generation. Reduces program code by ~80% compared to native development.
The Anchor macro applied to structs to define on-chain account data layouts. `#[account]` auto-derives Borsh serialization, adds an 8-byte discriminator prefix (SHA-256 of 'account:<Name>'), and implements space calculation. Optional attributes: `#[account(zero_copy)]` for zero-copy deserialization of large accounts.
The Anchor macro that defines the accounts struct for an instruction. Each field specifies an account with validation constraints. Account types include: `Account<'info, T>` (deserialized), `Signer<'info>` (must sign), `Program<'info, T>` (program reference), `SystemAccount<'info>`, and `UncheckedAccount<'info>` (no validation, use carefully).
Declarative validation rules on Anchor account fields. Key constraints: `#[account(mut)]` (writable), `#[account(init, payer=x, space=n)]` (create), `#[account(seeds=[...], bump)]` (PDA validation), `#[account(has_one=field)]` (field equality), `#[account(constraint = expr)]` (custom boolean), `#[account(close=target)]` (close and reclaim rent).