Reference Shelf
The shelf is organized by depth. Primers assume no prior chain knowledge. Deep dives assume you have read the relevant primer. Project breakdowns show how a real program or tool applies the concepts in practice.
Primers
- Understanding Program Derived Addresses — Beginner, 9 min — explains what a PDA is, why it has no private key, and how seeds make an address deterministic.
- Read a Transaction End to End — Beginner, 6 min — learn to parse signatures, accounts, instructions, and compute limits.
- Proof of History in Plain Language — Beginner, 8 min — understand how the ledger orders events before consensus votes.
Deep dives
- Programs & Accounts — Intermediate, 11 min — see why Solana stores state in accounts and how programs own logic without holding data.
- Validator Economics — Advanced, 14 min — explore stake-weighted rewards, leader rotation, and fast finality.
- Token Program Accounts in Practice — Intermediate, 12 min — trace mint, token account, and associated token account relationships.
- Compute Budget and Priority Fees — Intermediate, 10 min — why some transactions land and others do not.
Project breakdowns
- How a Decentralized Exchange Matches Orders — Advanced, 16 min — follows the order book, crank, and settlement accounts of an open-source DEX.
- Reading a Name Service Record — Intermediate, 7 min — resolves a .sol record through registry, resolver, and reverse-lookup accounts.
- A Lending Protocol Liquidation Trace — Advanced, 18 min — walks through oracle price accounts, obligation accounts, and liquidation instructions.