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Full-stack Solana development with React and Anchor

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intermediateweb3jsanchor
Full-stack Solana development with React and Anchor

This guide will walk you through building a full-stack Solana dApp using React and Anchor. A walkthrough video is available here.

If you've never used Solana and don't know what a blockchain is, you can also checkout this crash course to get you up to speed with the basics.

If any words or terms in this guide are confusing you, check out the terminology page on the Solana docs, they're pretty good!

Info

The final code for this guide can be found in this repository.

Project overview #

We'll be building a full-stack Solana app using these tools:

  • Anchor - program for building Solana programs in Rust
  • Solana CLI - command line interface for interacting with Solana
  • React - front-end framework
  • wallet-adapter - library for connecting wallets to your app

What you will learn #

  • How to build a Solana program in Rust using Anchor
  • Testing Anchor programs
  • Deploying to the Solana devnet
  • Building a React app that interacts with Solana from scratch
  • Connecting your React app to your Solana program

Environment setup #

To begin, you'll need to set up your environment. This guide assumes you're running MacOS or Linux. If you're on Windows, you'll need to install WSL and use that instead, here's how.

Here's a list of the tools you'll need to have installed:

You can download Node and Yarn from their setup pages which I've linked above. For the rest, check out the Solana Local development guide which has detailed instructions for different operating systems.

We'll be using Anchor 0.29 for this guide. You can make sure you're using it with avm use 0.29.0.

Once you have everything installed, run this command:

solana --version; node -v; yarn --version; anchor --version
Windows Users

Make sure you're running a WSL terminal, not a Windows terminal.

You should see a number of versions printed out. If you get an error, you'll need to install the missing tool.

If you haven't set up a Solana wallet yet, you can do that with:

solana-keygen new

You'll be prompted to enter a passphrase. This is the password you'll use to sign transactions and interact with your wallet. I only use my wallet for development, so I left mine blank.

The last thing you'll need is a Solana browser wallet extension to interact with the web-app you build. Some popular wallets you could use are: Phantom, Solflare, and Backpack.

Write and deploy a Solana program #

We'll start with our Solana Program (sometimes called a smart contract). This is Rust code that will live on the Solana blockchain that we'll be interacting with. To speed things up, we'll first deploy our program to a local Solana network running on our machine. Configure your Solana CLI to localnet like this:

solana config set --url localhost

Now we need to set up the local validator. Open up a new terminal window and run these commands:

cd ~
solana-test-validator

(Windows users -- solana-test-validator only works in the ~ directory.)

You'll see a bunch of logs that look like this:

endgame@~>solana-test-validator
Ledger location: test-ledger
Log: test-ledger/validator.log
⠈ Initializing...
Waiting for fees to stabilize 1...
Identity: 4GrmBaUtMM4CEKBDkwwne9AAVH9gzfqcoqm1Xwj3BfgT
Genesis Hash: E2yTivG7cf2pzfkQCtc3F3QPnerzFSS5Yya5MYnUUG8n
Version: 1.18.1
Shred Version: 18282
Gossip Address: 127.0.0.1:1024
TPU Address: 127.0.0.1:1027
JSON RPC URL: http://127.0.0.1:8899
WebSocket PubSub URL: ws://127.0.0.1:8900
⠉ 00:02:13 | Processed Slot: 321 | Confirmed Slot: 321 | Finalized Slot: 289 | Full Snapshot Slot: 200 | Incremental Snapshot Slot

Nice! You have an entire Solana network running on your machine. Keep this terminal window open -- if you close it this local network shuts down. This local network automatically airdrops 500000000 SOL to your CLI address by default. Just for fun, let's airdrop some more.

Open a new terminal window and run these:

solana airdrop 100
solana balance

You should now see 500000100 SOL! This is enough for anything you can imagine. When working with other clusters (like the devnet or testnet), you'll start with 0 SOL. It's important to use your SOL carefully and only airdrop when your balance is low.

Alright, let's write some code!

Set up an Anchor project #

Anchor is a framework for building Solana programs. It reduces the amount of boilerplate code you need to write and adds a lot of useful features like type safety and testing. In your workspace, run these to create a new Anchor project called counter and navigate into it:

anchor init counter
cd counter

Our program code will live in programs/counter/src. We'll interact and test this program using tests in tests/counter.ts powered by Mocha/Chai. You can ignore everything else in here for now.

The most common flow in developing programs on Solana is:

  • write program in Rust
  • build program to check for errors (or use rust-analyzer to get real-time errors)
  • write Mocha/Chai tests to make sure it does what you expect
  • test program
  • repeat until you're ready to deploy

Anchor projects come with everything we need to deploy out of the box. Run this to build the program:

anchor build

This may take a minute on older machines the first time you run it. This command compiles the Rust code in programs/counter/src to a program binary that can be deployed to the Solana blockchain. You'll see a new counter/target folder has appeared in your project. All the artifacts generated for your program are in there. Once the command finishes running, you'll see this:

   Compiling counter v0.1.0 (/mnt/full-stack-solana-dev/counter/programs/counter)
warning: unused variable: `ctx`
 --> programs/counter/src/lib.rs:9:23
  |
9 |     pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
  |                       ^^^ help: if this is intentional, prefix it with an underscore: `_ctx`
  |
  = note: `#[warn(unused_variables)]` on by default
 
warning: `counter` (lib) generated 1 warning (run `cargo fix --lib -p counter` to apply 1 suggestion)
    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 4m 43s

You just built a Solana program! The output here is from the Rust compiler. If there's any errors, warning, or other issues with your code, you'll see them here.

Open up programs/counter/src/lib.rs and take a look at the code you just built:

lib.rs
use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
 
declare_id!("Bims5KmWhFne1m1UT4bfSknBEoECeYfztoKrsR2jTnrA");
 
#[program]
pub mod counter {
    use super::*;
 
    pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
        Ok(())
    }
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize {}

The first line is bringing in the anchor_lang Rust library, similar to a import statement in Javascript. Next we have a declare_id! Rust macro. Macros in Rust are code that writes other code. Anchor generates a keypair for your program, the ID here is the public key of that keypair.

Once Solana programs have been deployed to the network, they need to be "initialized". This setup step is important because it sets initial state that the program logic will depend on. It also assigns ownership of accounts to the program, ensuring that the program has control over its state. Think of it setting up a new office before you can begin business.

This is a Solana program that does only one thing: it initializes. Once that's done, it exits. It doesn't do anything in the initialization step here.

You'll find the included test for this program in tests/counter.ts:

tests/counter.ts
import * as anchor from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Program } from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Counter } from "../target/types/counter";
 
describe("counter", () => {
  // Configure the client to use the local cluster.
  anchor.setProvider(anchor.AnchorProvider.env());
 
  const program = anchor.workspace.Counter as Program<Counter>;
 
  it("Is initialized!", async () => {
    // Add your test here.
    const tx = await program.methods.initialize().rpc();
    console.log("Your transaction signature", tx);
  });
});

If you haven't used Mocha before, this might seem unfamiliar. describe is used to group related tests in a test suite and it is used to define individual test cases. Anchor makes interacting with programs really easy by giving us a nice API.

Here's what the Anchor stuff is:

  • AnchorProvider lets us connect to our configured Solana development environment (local-test-validator).
  • const program = anchor.workspace.Counter creates a reference to the program we just built.
  • as Program<Counter> casts the program to the type in the IDL generated by Anchor when we built the program.
  • program.methods gives us access to the methods we defined in our program.
  • initialize().rpc() sends an RPC call with the initialize method.

Running this test with anchor test --skip-local-validator should give you:

  counter
Your transaction signature 2pMJRoC2h3AmCpfHQaptKTWV7Hyfuc2Gujfzrv6cffRhjptcuPbpMgahgrxtw28kRQ5Gf4d5VdMcon4j9aEmPyVy
    ✔ Is initialized! (325ms)
 
  1 passing (330ms)
 
Done in 12.65s.

When running tests, Anchor automatically sets up a local validator. Since we already have one running, we can tell it to skip that step and use our one with the --skip-local-validator flag.

Write a counter program in Rust #

Ready to write your first program? We'll be building a simple program that increments a counter and returns the current value.

Before we can get started, delete your counter/target folder to start from a clean slate. When you run anchor build, it does a lot of things behind the scenes, including generating a keypair for your program, which is stored in counter/target/deploy/counter-keypair.json.

Deleting the target folder will remove all artifacts for the previous program, including the keypair used to deploy it. This means you will lose control of any programs previously deployed (we don't care about the template program so it's okay).

We're ready, let's make a counter! Open up programs/counter/src/lib.rs and replace it with this:

lib.rs
use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
 
// Specify the program address
declare_id!("C93fyDjEmyAfr9nwDeWMVCeWVVx8fjySxnshSA9VY4KG");
 
// Instructions defined in program module
#[program]
pub mod counter {
    use super::*;
 
    // Instruction to initialize a new counter account
    pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
        // Reference to the counter account from the Initialize struct
        let counter = &ctx.accounts.counter;
        msg!("Counter account created! Current count: {}", counter.count);
        Ok(())
    }
 
    // Instruction to increment a counter account
    pub fn increment(ctx: Context<Increment>) -> Result<()> {
        // Mutable reference to the counter account from the Increment struct
        let counter = &mut ctx.accounts.counter;
        msg!("Previous counter: {}", counter.count);
 
        // Increment the count value stored on the counter account by 1
        counter.count = counter.count.checked_add(1).unwrap();
        msg!("Counter incremented! Current count: {}", counter.count);
        Ok(())
    }
}
 
// Accounts required by the initialize instruction
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize<'info> {
    // The account paying to create the counter account
    #[account(mut)]
    pub user: Signer<'info>, // specify account must be signer on the transaction
 
    // The counter account being created and initialized in the instruction
    #[account(
        init,         // specifies we are creating this account
        payer = user, // specifies account paying for the creation of the account
        space = 8 + 8 // space allocated to the new account (8 byte discriminator + 8 byte for u64)
    )]
    pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>, // specify account is 'Counter' type
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>, // specify account must be System Program
}
 
// Account required by the increment instruction
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Increment<'info> {
    #[account(mut)] // specify account is mutable because we are updating its data
    pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>, // specify account is 'Counter' type
}
 
// Define structure of `Counter` account
#[account]
pub struct Counter {
    pub count: u64, // define count value type as u64
}

The layout of this program is:

  • import necessary Rust libraries
  • declare the program's address
  • define program instruction handlers (functional logic)
  • define structs for the instruction handlers (the data format that will be passed in)
  • define structs for the accounts this program needs (including the format of the data stored on-chain)

The code here is simpler than it looks. Let's go block by block through the new stuff.

lib.rs
// Instructions defined in program module
#[program]
pub mod counter {
    use super::*;
 
    // Instruction to initialize a new counter account
    pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
        // Reference to the counter account from the Initialize struct
        let counter = &ctx.accounts.counter;
        msg!("Counter account created! Current count: {}", counter.count);
        Ok(())
    }
 
    // Instruction to increment a counter account
    pub fn increment(ctx: Context<Increment>) -> Result<()> {
        // Mutable reference to the counter account from the Increment struct
        let counter = &mut ctx.accounts.counter;
        msg!("Previous counter: {}", counter.count);
 
        // Increment the count value stored on the counter account by 1
        counter.count = counter.count.checked_add(1).unwrap();
        msg!("Counter incremented! Current count: {}", counter.count);
        Ok(())
    }
}

In the program module, we've got two instruction handlers - these are like the endpoints of an API. Every time we call them via a transaction sent to an RPC, we pass in some context (ctx) - the state of the blockchain, which accounts are interacting with it, any data passed in, etc. Think of this like the body of a POST request.

Both of these instruction handlers take in arguments that have specific formats which we define later on and they return a Result type, which is a way to handle responses/errors in Rust (kind of like a HTTP response code).

let counter = &ctx.accounts.counter; creates an immutable reference using the value counter passed in from the context. For this program, we'll be generating a keypair and passing in its address as the counter parameter. This will make more sense when we look at the test.

The msg! is a print statement that we can see on the logs in our blockchain explorer.

The increment instruction handler obtains a mutable reference to the counter account from the context passed in. After logging the current value with a msg! statement, it uses the checked_add method to increment the value by 1. unwrap gives us the result of the operation (this would fail the transaction if the addition overflows the u64 type). We end with another msg! statement and then return an Ok(()) result.

Finally, let's take a look at the struct definitions:

lib.rs
// Accounts required by the initialize instruction
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize<'info> {
    // The account paying to create the counter account
    #[account(mut)]
    pub user: Signer<'info>, // specify account must be signer on the transaction
 
    // The counter account being created and initialized in the instruction
    #[account(
        init,         // specifies we are creating this account
        payer = user, // specifies account paying for the creation of the account
        space = 8 + 8 // space allocated to the new account (8 byte discriminator + 8 byte for u64)
    )]
    pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>, // specify account is 'Counter' type
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>, // specify account must be System Program
}
 
// Account required by the increment instruction
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Increment<'info> {
    #[account(mut)] // specify account is mutable because we are updating its data
    pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>, // specify account is 'Counter' type
}
 
// Define structure of `Counter` account
#[account]
pub struct Counter {
    pub count: u64, // define count value type as u64
}

Make sure you go over the comments!

The initialize instruction instruction does only one this: it creates a new account of the Counter type. To do this, we need to know who's paying, details of the account we're creating like the space and the address, and which program to use to create the account.

Let's go line by line:

  • #[derive(Accounts)] is an attribute that tells Anchor to generate the necessary serialization and deserialization code for the accounts.
  • #[account(mut)] tells Anchor that the account is mutable
  • pub user: Signer<'info>, the user is of type Signer<> that signs and pays for the transaction. 'info is the Rust lifetime.
  • #[account(init, payer = user, space = 8 + 8)]
    • #[account(init)] tells Anchor that this is an account that will be created
    • payer = user tells Anchor that the account is owned by the user
    • space = 8 + 8 tells Anchor how much space to allocate for the account
  • pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>, the created account should be of type Counter
  • pub system_program: Program<'info, System>, adds a constraint that the system program must be in the list of accounts for the transaction

It's normal for this code to feel unfamiliar. Anchor does things like separate the account creation and account type declarations. As you write more programs, you'll get used to it.

The increment instruction is far simpler - it expects an account of type Counter passed in. The Counter type is just a struct that has a count field of type u64, which is a 64-bit unsigned integer.

We're almost ready to build this program!

Each Anchor project has it's own program address when it's first built. Since you've just copied my code, the program address at the top of your lib.rs won't match yours. To generate a keypair, run anchor build, and then run anchor keys sync to set it in your Anchor.toml and in the id field of your lib.rs.

To recap what the whole flow so far:

  • anchor init to create a new project
  • anchor build to compile the template program
  • anchor test --skip-local-validator to test the template
  • delete target folder to start from a clean slate
  • Update Rust in lib.rs with new logic
  • anchor build to generate a new keypair & compile our new program
  • anchor keys sync to set the new program address

Next time, you can skip building and testing the template.

Writing a test for our program #

Next up, let's test this program we just wrote. Open up tests/counter.ts and replace it with this:

tests/counter.ts
import * as anchor from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Program } from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Counter } from "../target/types/counter";
import { Keypair } from "@solana/web3.js";
 
describe("counter", () => {
  // Configure the client to use the local cluster.
  const provider = anchor.AnchorProvider.env();
  anchor.setProvider(provider);
 
  const program = anchor.workspace.Counter as Program<Counter>;
 
  // Generate a new keypair to use as the address the counter account
  const counterAccount = new Keypair();
 
  it("Is initialized!", async () => {
    // Invoke the initialize instruction
    const transactionSignature = await program.methods
      .initialize()
      .accounts({
        counter: counterAccount.publicKey,
      })
      .signers([counterAccount]) // include counter keypair as additional signer
      .rpc({ skipPreflight: true });
 
    // Fetch the counter account data
    const accountData = await program.account.counter.fetch(
      counterAccount.publicKey,
    );
 
    console.log(`Transaction Signature: ${transactionSignature}`);
    console.log(`Count: ${accountData.count}`);
  });
 
  it("Increment", async () => {
    // Invoke the increment instruction
    const transactionSignature = await program.methods
      .increment()
      .accounts({
        counter: counterAccount.publicKey,
      })
      .rpc();
 
    // Fetch the counter account data
    const accountData = await program.account.counter.fetch(
      counterAccount.publicKey,
    );
 
    console.log(`Transaction Signature: ${transactionSignature}`);
    console.log(`Count: ${accountData.count}`);
  });
});

We've updated the initialize test case to match our new logic and added a case for incrementing. Let's go over how we did this line by line.

const counterAccount = new Keypair();

First, we generate a new keypair to use as the address the counter account. This is where the data of the counter will be stored.

const transactionSignature = await program.methods
  .initialize()
  .accounts({
    counter: counterAccount.publicKey,
  })
  .signers([counterAccount]) // include counter keypair as additional signer
  .rpc({ skipPreflight: true });

Next, we pass in this address in the context of the initialize instruction as counter. Since this account will be changed, we also need to include it as a signer. To close out the test case we fetch the account data and print out the value of the counter.

The increment test case calls the increment instruction and fetches the account data, but since we've already initialized it, we just pass in the address of the counter account from global state.

Now that we're printing out messages in our logs, we'll set up a log viewer. Open another terminal and run solana logs. This will stream Solana transaction logs. You can also view transactions in the Solana explorer by configuring it to use the local cluster.

Let's run this! anchor test --skip-local-validator should give you:

Count: 1
    ✔ Increment (3973ms)
 
  2 passing (8s)
 
Done in 26.34s.

Finalize your Anchor program with a PDA #

The program we have is pretty good and it does what we want, but it's using an inefficient method of storing data and is not completely secure.

Right now, we're manually creating an account for storing counter data. This requires keeping track of the account, and if the keypair is leaked anyone can change its value. We are also statically allocating the account size, which is not ideal.

The right way to store data is with a Program Derived Address. A PDA is an account that's controlled by a program with an address that you can "derive" from a combination of known items: a seed (a string of our choice) and the program ID. The data stored in a PDA is more secure because only the program can change it.

Now, instead of having to keep track of and manage a keypair that stores the data, we can just use a function that derives a PDA for us (this code is only for reference):

// new method
const [counterPDA] = PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
  [Buffer.from("counter")], // This is the seed -- just the string "counter"
  program.programId, // If we're interacting with the program, we know its ID
);
 
// vs old method
const counterAccount = new Keypair(); // You have to keep track of this value
// can't be easily shared with others
// security concern - if the keypair is leaked, anyone can change the value

The final bit of a PDA is a bump number. This is an extra item that is used to make sure the generated address does not have a private key. So you find a PDA using:

  • program id
  • seed (your string)
  • bump (a number stored in the account)

Here's what the updated code in your lib.rs for this is:

lib.rs
use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
 
declare_id!("C87Mkt2suddDsb6Y15hJyGQzu9itMhU7RGxTQw17mTm");
 
#[program]
pub mod counter {
    use super::*;
 
    pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
        let counter = &mut ctx.accounts.counter;
        counter.bump = ctx.bumps.counter; // store bump seed in `Counter` account
        msg!("Counter account created! Current count: {}", counter.count);
        msg!("Counter bump: {}", counter.bump);
        Ok(())
    }
 
    pub fn increment(ctx: Context<Increment>) -> Result<()> {
        let counter = &mut ctx.accounts.counter;
        msg!("Previous counter: {}", counter.count);
        counter.count = counter.count.checked_add(1).unwrap();
        msg!("Counter incremented! Current count: {}", counter.count);
        Ok(())
    }
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize<'info> {
    #[account(mut)]
    pub user: Signer<'info>,
 
    // Create and initialize `Counter` account using a PDA as the address
    #[account(
        init,
        seeds = [b"counter"], // optional seeds for pda
        bump,                 // bump seed for pda
        payer = user,
        space = 8 + Counter::INIT_SPACE
    )]
    pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Increment<'info> {
    // The address of the `Counter` account must be a PDA derived with the specified `seeds`
    #[account(
        mut,
        seeds = [b"counter"], // optional seeds for pda
        bump = counter.bump,  // bump seed for pda stored in `Counter` account
    )]
    pub counter: Account<'info, Counter>,
}
 
#[account]
#[derive(InitSpace)]
pub struct Counter {
    pub count: u64, // 8 bytes
    pub bump: u8,   // 1 byte
}

Make sure you run anchor keys sync here if you've copy/pasted everything. You'll also need to make sure you have seeds enabled as an Anchor feature. Open your Anchor.toml file add set seeds = true in the [features] section:

[toolchain]
 
[features]
seeds = true
skip-lint = false

You know most of this code. Let's dive into the changes we made to use a PDA:

In the initialize function, we store the bump seed in the Counter account with counter.bump = ctx.bumps.counter;. This allows us to retrieve the bump seed later when we need to derive the PDA again. We're also allocating space based on the size of the Counter struct.

In the Initialize struct, we've updated the #[account()] attribute for the counter field:

  • seeds = [b"counter"] specifies the seed used to derive the PDA. In this case, it's just the string "counter" converted to a byte slice.
  • bump tells Anchor to use the canonical bump number for the PDA.

The Increment struct has also been updated with the same PDA seed and bump. Finally, the Counter struct now includes a bump field to store the bump seed.

This approach provides better security and eliminates the need to manage a separate keypair for the counter account. The bump seed is stored in the Counter account itself, making it easy to retrieve when needed.

Let's test this! Here is what the new test in tests/counter.ts will look like:

tests/counter.ts
import * as anchor from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Program } from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Counter } from "../target/types/counter";
import { PublicKey } from "@solana/web3.js";
 
describe("counter", () => {
  // Configure the client to use the local cluster.
  const provider = anchor.AnchorProvider.env();
  anchor.setProvider(provider);
 
  const program = anchor.workspace.Counter as Program<Counter>;
 
  const [counterPDA] = PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
    [Buffer.from("counter")],
    program.programId,
  );
 
  it("Is initialized!", async () => {
    try {
      const txSig = await program.methods
        .initialize()
        .accounts({
          counter: counterPDA,
        })
        .rpc();
 
      const accountData = await program.account.counter.fetch(counterPDA);
      console.log(`Transaction Signature: ${txSig}`);
      console.log(`Count: ${accountData.count}`);
    } catch (error) {
      // If PDA Account already created, then we expect an error
      console.log(error);
    }
  });
 
  it("Increment", async () => {
    const transactionSignature = await program.methods
      .increment()
      .accounts({
        counter: counterPDA,
      })
      .rpc();
 
    const accountData = await program.account.counter.fetch(counterPDA);
 
    console.log(`Transaction Signature: ${transactionSignature}`);
    console.log(`Count: ${accountData.count}`);
  });
});

As you can see, we're not generating a keypair here. Everything we need to initialize this program and interact with it is easily definable and shareable.

Now it's time to deploy this. Solana programs don't store state - everything is stored in accounts. This makes it easy to upgrade programs without having to worry about losing data. When you deploy a program, space is only allocated to be double the first program's size you deploy. So if your original program is 100 bytes, the new program can be up to 200 bytes. If your program is bigger, you'll have to extend it.

Our new program is more than 2x the size of the original so if we run anchor test --skip-local-validator we'll get this error:

Error: Deploying program failed: RPC response error -32002: Transaction simulation failed: Error processing Instruction 0: account data too small for instruction [3 log messages]

We have three options here:

  • Extend the size of the old program account
  • Deploy a new program
  • Reset the local validator

Let's go with the first option since we have millions in SOL. First, let's get the size of the old program account:

solana program show C87Mkt2suddDsb6Y15hJyGQzu9itMhU7RGxTQw17mTm

You'll see the output look something like this:

Program Id: C87Mkt2suddDsb6Y15hJyGQzu9itMhU7RGxTQw17mTm
Owner: BPFLoaderUpgradeab1e11111111111111111111111
ProgramData Address: 22D5oHo5q8LtdvYePrSBwy6D58z2K9KKwdn6W1UiEQEz
Authority: FmpP9UGJUBoYUDFpBYALDGudAZtTTmK46tBpC6TkcXry
Last Deployed In Slot: 283249128
Data Length: 204080 (0x31d30) bytes
Balance: 1.42160088 SOL

To find out the size of the new program, run this:

du -h target/deploy/counter.so

This will print the disk usage of the compiled program. If you wanna find out how much SOL this will cost:

solana rent 200000

Let's extend, you need the program ID and the extension size in bytes:

solana program extend C87Mkt2suddDsb6Y15hJyGQzu9itMhU7RGxTQw17mTm 200000

Now we can deploy and test the new program:

anchor test --skip-local-validator

The first command will update the program address in your lib.rs file. The second command will build, deploy, and test your program on your local test validator.

Deploy to devnet #

From here on out, we're DONE with local development. We will be using Solana's devnet for the rest of this guide. Solana's devnet is a public development blockchain with real data and fake tokens on it. Think of it like your "staging environment" before deploying your code to production.

We'll need some Solana devnet tokens to pay for transactions. You can configure your CLI wallet to devnet and get some tokens with these commands:

solana config set --url devnet
solana airdrop 2

If this doesn't work, you can print out your wallet address with solana address and use the Solana faucet to get some tokens.

Now we're ready to deploy our program to the devnet. Here's a summary of what we'll be doing:

  • Update our Anchor.toml file to use the devnet
  • Deploy our program to the devnet
  • Rerun the test to initialize our program and increment the counter

Update your Anchor.toml file to use the devnet network and add the address for your devnet program:

[toolchain]
 
[features]
seeds = true
skip-lint = false
 
[programs.localnet]
counter = "Bims5KmWhFne1m1UT4bfSknBEoECeYfztoKrsR2jTnrA"
 
[programs.devnet]
counter = "Bims5KmWhFne1m1UT4bfSknBEoECeYfztoKrsR2jTnrA"
 
[registry]
url = "https://api.apr.dev"
 
[provider]
cluster = "devnet"
wallet = "/home/endgame/.config/solana/id.json"
 
[scripts]
test = "yarn run ts-mocha -p ./tsconfig.json -t 1000000 tests/**/*.ts"

What's changed? I've added a new [programs.devnet] section and under the [provider] section, changed the cluster to devnet.

We're ready to deploy! Run anchor test and you should see this:

Deploying cluster: https://api.devnet.solana.com
Upgrade authority: /home/endgame/.config/solana/id.json
Deploying program "counter"...
Program path: /full-stack-solana-dev/counter/target/deploy/counter.so...
Program Id: F7nbbscQpQucypsjzJccBDLBSVAVKBHumNLpxqHXym4U
 
Deploy success
 
Found a 'test' script in the Anchor.toml. Running it as a test suite!
 
Running test suite: "/full-stack-solana-dev/counter/Anchor.toml"

Copy the address and check it out on the Solana explorer.

You're off localhost! Anyone on the internet can now interact with your program. Let's give them a front-end to do that.

Program deploy failed? #

Program code is temporarily stored in buffer accounts while programs are being deployed. You can view and close these accounts with:

solana program show --buffers
solana program close --buffers

Running out of gas? #

If you've completely run out of gas, you can close programs you've previously deployed. This is not reversible. These programs will be deleted and can't be re-deployed. As a last resort:

solana program close --programid <program id>

Or if you're feeling really daring:

solana program close --all

Build a React client for your app #

Now that your Solana program is live on the public devnet blockchain, you have several options for interacting with it. Any client you can think of will work - Node.js script, React app, mobile app, even a serverless function. In this guide, we will be building a React app.

Set up your React project #

There's a bunch of Solana templates available for front-ends that give you everything you need. We are not going to use a Solana template. They often come with a lot of stuff added in and can be overwhelming for a beginner.

Instead, I'm going to walk you through doing it yourself. This will help you understand what the templates are doing and show you how simple integrating Solana wallets can be.

We'll be using Vite because it is more simple than Next.js and keeps things light. What you'll learn here will apply to ALL React frameworks - Next, Remix, etc.

Start by opening a new terminal window and creating a new vite project inside your workspace (make sure you're outside the counter folder):

yarn create vite

Name it whatever you want (I've named mine front-end). Select React as your framework and Typescript as the variant. Don't worry, we're not going to be doing any fancy Typescript stuff!

If you're on Windows and using WSL, you'll need to update your vite.config.ts file so hot reloading works. Open it up and change it to this:

// WSL USERS ON WINDOWS ONLY (NOT NECESSARY FOR LINUX/MACOS)
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import react from "@vitejs/plugin-react";
 
// https://vitejs.dev/config/
export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [react()],
  server: {
    watch: {
      usePolling: true,
    },
  },
});

Next, navigate into the front-end folder and run yarn to install all the dependencies:

cd front-end
yarn

Your front-end is ready! Run the command yarn dev and open up your React app at http://localhost:5173/.

Create a connect wallet button #

There is no need to build a "connect wallet button" from scratch. The Solana ecosystem has some really nice wallet adapter libraries that make adding wallets plug-n-play. You can even customize the styling!

Throw this command into your terminal to install all the wallet-adapter stuff we need:

yarn add react @solana/web3.js \
  @solana/wallet-adapter-base @solana/wallet-adapter-react \
  @solana/wallet-adapter-react-ui @solana/wallet-adapter-wallets

Ready to see some magic happen? Open up your front-end/src/App.tsx file and replace the code in there with this:

App.tsx
import { useMemo } from "react";
import {
  ConnectionProvider,
  WalletProvider,
} from "@solana/wallet-adapter-react";
import { WalletAdapterNetwork } from "@solana/wallet-adapter-base";
import {
  WalletModalProvider,
  WalletMultiButton,
} from "@solana/wallet-adapter-react-ui";
import { clusterApiUrl } from "@solana/web3.js";
import "./App.css";
 
// Default styles that can be overridden by your app
import "@solana/wallet-adapter-react-ui/styles.css";
 
function App() {
  // The network can be set to 'devnet', 'testnet', or 'mainnet-beta'.
  const network = WalletAdapterNetwork.Devnet;
  // You can also provide a custom RPC endpoint.
  const endpoint = useMemo(() => clusterApiUrl(network), [network]);
 
  const wallets = useMemo(
    () => [
      // if desired, manually define specific/custom wallets here (normally not required)
      // otherwise, the wallet-adapter will auto detect the wallets a user's browser has available
    ],
    [network],
  );
 
  return (
    <ConnectionProvider endpoint={endpoint}>
      <WalletProvider wallets={wallets} autoConnect>
        <WalletModalProvider>
          <WalletMultiButton />
          <h1>Hello Solana</h1>
        </WalletModalProvider>
      </WalletProvider>
    </ConnectionProvider>
  );
}
 
export default App;

This code snippet and configuration is taken directly from the wallet-adapter docs. All we're doing here is bringing in the wallet-adapter imports, setting up a Solana network connection, and wrapping our app with the necessary context providers.

Head back to http://localhost:5173/ and you should see this:

localhost vite app with select wallet buttonlocalhost vite app with select wallet button

We're ready to rumble!

P.S. you can change the app title in index.html.

Reading from the blockchain #

Are you ready to read data directly from the blockchain within your frontend? This is easier than you think!

First we need to build the layer that connects our deployed program with our front-end React app. We'll define what our program is and how to interact with it using the IDL generated from Anchor when we last ran anchor build.

Create a new folder named anchor in front-end/src and copy over target/types/counter.ts (from the Anchor program) to a new file called idl.ts. We'll use the IDL to create Typescript objects that let us interact with our program.

We'll need the Anchor SDK in our front-end to create the interfaces for the program. Install it with:

yarn add @coral-xyz/anchor@0.29

Now for the "connection layer" code. Create a setup.ts file in the front-end/src/anchor folder and add this to it:

setup.ts
import { IdlAccounts, Program } from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { IDL, Counter } from "./idl";
import { clusterApiUrl, Connection, PublicKey } from "@solana/web3.js";
 
const programId = new PublicKey("B2Sj5CsvGJvYEVUgF1ZBnWsBzWuHRQLrgMSJDjBU5hWA");
const connection = new Connection(clusterApiUrl("devnet"), "confirmed");
 
// Initialize the program interface with the IDL, program ID, and connection.
// This setup allows us to interact with the on-chain program using the defined interface.
export const program = new Program<Counter>(IDL, programId, {
  connection,
});
 
export const [counterPDA] = PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
  [Buffer.from("counter")],
  program.programId,
);
 
// This is just a TypeScript type for the Counter data structure based on the IDL
// We need this so TypeScript doesn't yell at us
export type CounterData = IdlAccounts<Counter>["counter"];

What we're doing here is using the interface to lay the groundwork for interacting with our program. We're generating the PDA for the counter account - we need this because anytime we send a Solana transaction, we have to specify all the accounts that will be changed by that transaction.

If we're minting a token, or changing the value of the counter, those accounts will change, and we need to include their addresses in the transaction. These are in their own file insetup.ts so we can access them in anywhere in our app.

Make sure you remember to replace the programId value with the address of YOUR program. Now that we have everything set up, we ready to read data from the blockchain!

Create a new directory named components in front-end/src and add a counter-state.tsx file in it with this code:

counter-state.tsx
import { useEffect, useState } from "react";
import { useConnection } from "@solana/wallet-adapter-react";
import { program, counterPDA, CounterData } from "../anchor/setup";
 
export default function CounterState() {
  const { connection } = useConnection();
  const [counterData, setCounterData] = useState<CounterData | null>(null);
 
  useEffect(() => {
    const fetchCounterData = async () => {
      try {
        // Fetch initial account data
        const data = await program.account.counter.fetch(counterPDA);
        setCounterData(data);
      } catch (error) {
        console.error("Error fetching counter data:", error);
      }
    };
 
    fetchCounterData();
 
    // Subscribe to account change
    const subscriptionId = connection.onAccountChange(
      // The address of the account we want to watch
      counterPDA,
      // Callback for when the account changes
      accountInfo => {
        try {
          const decodedData = program.coder.accounts.decode(
            "counter",
            accountInfo.data,
          );
          setCounterData(decodedData);
        } catch (error) {
          console.error("Error decoding account data:", error);
        }
      },
    );
 
    return () => {
      // Unsubscribe from account change
      connection.removeAccountChangeListener(subscriptionId);
    };
 
    // eslint-disable-next-line react-hooks/exhaustive-deps
  }, [program, counterPDA, connection]);
 
  // Render the value of the counter
  return <p className="text-lg">Count: {counterData?.count?.toString()}</p>;
}

Above, we use program.account.counter.fetch(counterPDA) to fetch the onchain value of counter when the React app loads. And also subscribe to any changes of that onchain data with connection.onAccountChange, which takes in a callback as the second value. The callback decodes the data we get back and sets it.

The final step is to add the CounterState component to our App.tsx file. Add this to the bottom of the file:

App.tsx
// ... previous imports
// Import the component we just created
import CounterState from "./components/counter-state";
 
function App() {
  const network = WalletAdapterNetwork.Devnet;
  const endpoint = useMemo(() => clusterApiUrl(network), [network]);
 
  const wallets = useMemo(
    () => [
      // if desired, manually define specific/custom wallets here (normally not required)
      // otherwise, the wallet-adapter will auto detect the wallets a user's browser has available
    ],
    [network],
  );
 
  return (
    <ConnectionProvider endpoint={endpoint}>
      <WalletProvider wallets={wallets} autoConnect>
        <WalletModalProvider>
          <WalletMultiButton />
          <h1>Hello Solana</h1>
          // ADD THIS LINE
          <CounterState />
        </WalletModalProvider>
      </WalletProvider>
    </ConnectionProvider>
  );
}
 
export default App;

Now if you open up http://localhost:5173/ and you should see something like:

Count: 2

WOAH. WE JUST READ DATA FROM THE BLOCKCHAIN. Let's keep the momentum rolling by writing data to the blockchain!

Writing to the blockchain #

Now to add increment functionality. We're going to put it all in a button component. Create a new file components/increment-button.tsx and add this code:

increment-button.tsx
import { useState } from "react";
import { useConnection, useWallet } from "@solana/wallet-adapter-react";
import { program } from "../anchor/setup";
 
export default function IncrementButton() {
  const { publicKey, sendTransaction } = useWallet();
  const { connection } = useConnection();
  const [isLoading, setIsLoading] = useState(false);
 
  const onClick = async () => {
    if (!publicKey) return;
 
    setIsLoading(true);
 
    try {
      // Create a transaction to invoke the increment function
      const transaction = await program.methods
        .increment() // This takes no arguments so we don't need to pass anything
        .transaction();
 
      const transactionSignature = await sendTransaction(
        transaction,
        connection,
      );
 
      console.log(
        `View on explorer: https://solana.fm/tx/${transactionSignature}?cluster=devnet-alpha`,
      );
    } catch (error) {
      console.log(error);
    } finally {
      setIsLoading(false);
    }
  };
 
  return (
    <button className="w-24" onClick={onClick} disabled={!publicKey}>
      {isLoading ? "Loading" : "Increment"}
    </button>
  );
}

You know most of this code. The only new thing happening here is the transaction we're sending. We're using the program.methods.increment() method to create a transaction that increments the counter and mints our token. The accounts passed in are the user's wallet and the associated token account for the user's wallet.

Add our new IncrementButton component into the App.tsx to see the button:

App.tsx
// ... previous imports
// Import the component we just created
import IncrementButton from "./components/increment-button";
 
function App() {
  const network = WalletAdapterNetwork.Devnet;
  const endpoint = useMemo(() => clusterApiUrl(network), [network]);
 
  const wallets = useMemo(
    () => [
      // if desired, manually define specific/custom wallets here (normally not required)
      // otherwise, the wallet-adapter will auto detect the wallets a user's browser has available
    ],
    [network],
  );
 
  return (
    <ConnectionProvider endpoint={endpoint}>
      <WalletProvider wallets={wallets} autoConnect>
        <WalletModalProvider>
          <WalletMultiButton />
          <h1>Hello Solana</h1>
          <CounterState />
          <IncrementButton />
        </WalletModalProvider>
      </WalletProvider>
    </ConnectionProvider>
  );
}
 
export default App;

Open up http://localhost:5173/ and you should now see a button. Make sure you are connected to devnet on your browser wallet and click that button. You should see a popup or notification that will ask you to sign a transaction. After you confirm that transaction, you should see the counter increment and the associated token account minted.

You did it! You are now a full-stack Solana developer.

What now? #

The world is yours for the taking. Anything you can imagine, you can create with Solana.

Whatever you build, share it with the world! Tag me on Twitter @almostefficient, it makes me happy seeing y'all build :)

Good luck!

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