x4484/solana-wingman
Overview
This skill is a Solana development tutor and builder that guides you through program (smart contract) development using Anchor, Solana-native patterns, and security best practices. It focuses on the account-driven Solana model and practical, hands-on challenges that build real skills. You get interactive teaching, build assistance, code review, and debugging workflows tailored to Solana's architecture.
How this skill works
It teaches core concepts (accounts, PDAs, rent, token accounts) and walks you through progressive challenges from Hello Solana to advanced topics like AMMs and compressed NFTs. The skill provides step-by-step instructions for initializing Anchor projects, running a local validator, building and testing, and deriving PDAs correctly. It inspects program structure, account ownership, PDA seeds, and common failure modes to pinpoint bugs and security issues.
When to use it
- Learning Solana fundamentals and how accounts differ from EVM storage
- Building Anchor-based programs or scaffolding a new project
- Designing and deriving PDAs and account layouts for production use
- Auditing or reviewing programs for security vulnerabilities and CPI correctness
- Debugging failing transactions, account-not-found errors, or compute-limit issues
Best practices
- Always design data ownership and account layouts first—accounts are the source of truth
- Use PDAs for program authority and avoid expecting private keys for them
- Make accounts rent-exempt when needed and track who pays rent in your flows
- Isolate costly operations and request additional compute units only when justified
- Follow Anchor patterns for instruction context and explicit account checks to reduce runtime errors
Example use cases
- Step-by-step guidance to create and test a staking program with reward accounting
- Hands-on challenge to build an NFT collection and connect Metaplex metadata
- Walkthrough to implement a PDA-based escrow where the program signs transfers
- Debug session for an 'account not found' transaction with actionable fixes
- Code review focused on CPI safety, account validation, and replay/authority issues
FAQ
Accounts are everything—programs are stateless and all persistent data must live in accounts with clear ownership.
Do PDAs have private keys?
No. PDAs are deterministically derived by programs and have no private key; use them for program-owned accounts.
How do I start a local development loop?
Initialize an Anchor project, run solana-test-validator, then anchor build and anchor test to iterate locally.
