Solana Dev Setup Guide (Part 1: CLI)

Setup to build fast, cheap, and fun projects on Solana, CLI with free Solana Devnet SOL.

22 min readMar 30, 2025

This guide gets developers from zero to Solana setup for CLI usage quickly with practical steps.

We’re starting a new tutorial series that will be 90% hands-on building products, and 10% reviewing the theory of why it works.

The emphasis is on getting fast results and having fun while doing it. But, we do have to install some prerequisites first in this and the next tutorials.

Solana Devnet is a free, safe sandbox mirroring Solana’s mainnet (live), perfect for experimenting without spending real SOL. You will get some free devnet SOL!

This is Part 1 of a “setup series” prelude for who want to ship Solana apps. Developing on Solana is multi-disciplinary and covers a wide of technologies ranging from the CLI, to frontend like Next.js, to offchain Node.js or other backend scripts, and of course, onchain backend programs in Rust/Anchor.

You could start in other ways, but the Solana CLI is a great starting point because we install many of the libraries we’ll need later, and it doesn’t require any coding. If you want more theory and a Cloud Developer’s overview then you may want to check out my article: Solana for Cloud Developers… or review Solana Developer docs.

🙋‍♂️ Why follow my setup articles? You can also go to the Solana docs for setup info, however, I add my own tips and tricks along the way and designed this to fit the fun apps and tech stack we’ll be using later!

🚀 After the basic setups in this and the next 2 tutorials, we will be doing fun apps! You will be able to refer to the first 3 tutorials (CLI, Javascript/Node.js/Next.js, and Anchor/Rust) as you continue…

🔥 Get excited, you are on the cusp of great things with being part of the Solana ecosystem!

🥷🏻 We have a very small ninja battle ahead: Install everything! After that, we will be getting acquainted with the CLI, our command-line toolkit to get things done.

🛠️ Installs should be fairly quick. Then we’ll be off to Solana building 💯🚀

⚠️ Why use Devnet and not a local-only validator? We will do a local validator at some point, however, first we want to use online block explorers and other tasks that involve looking at Devnet. A local validator is good though for fast iteration in dev, so we could use that later.

⚠️ Windows users: I am using MacOS and Linux, but Windows users can/should use the Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL) with the Solana CLI (Solana devs recommend that). There is a section in the Solana CLI install instructions explaining more details for Windows users. See: “Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL)”

Install NVM/FNM, Node.js, PNPM, Rust (required).
Install the Solana CLI.
Configure CLI for Devnet.
Create a Devnet wallet.
Get free Devnet SOL with an airdrop.
Basic CLI commands for getting information.
CLI for transactions.
Review on Solana Explorer: Solscan.io (devnet)
Solana Toolkit / “Mucho” (new CLI helpers)
🥷🏻Secret Solana CLI Commands (bonus)
Other Solana Resources

📝 Some quick notes on Solana Devnet:

Free to use. Solana Devnet doesn’t require real SOL, so you can experiment safely without spending money.
Same runtime. It behaves almost exactly like Solana Mainnet, making it ideal for real-world testing.
Public faucet. Request free test SOL to fund your Devnet wallet.
Clean resets. The network resets periodically, so don’t expect long-term data persistence.
Great for debugging. Transaction logs and program outputs are easier to track and debug on Devnet.
Viewable in Solana explorers. You can view your transactions from Solana blockchain explorers. Just make sure to switch it to Devnet!

Downsides, be aware of a few downsides:

Airdrops rate-limited and sometimes delayed. You cannot just get 100 dev SOL in devnet right away. Usually only 1–2 SOL an hour (or longer), so you must experiment with small amounts. Also, if you use a VPN proxy or the default devnet url it may get rate limited easier. There are some suggestions below in the article on how to deal with this. Suffice to say, at times it can be a slight pain.
Devnet can have reduced performance on rare occasions. It is for developer testing and experimentation, and this could lead to an issue which reduces efficiency for some period.

1. Install nvm/fnm, Node.js (required)

First we need to get the Node.js requirements for the Solana CLI installed in these steps below. nvm and fnm are ways of changing your Node.js version. This is required before we get started with this tutorial series. Note: nvm is a more popular option; fnm is newer and similar to nvm but is more widely available cross-platform.

⚠️ Windows: It is required to use the Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL) for using the Solana CLI. There is a section in the Solana CLI install instructions. See: “Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL)”

I’ve tried to simplify the instructions below, but if you need further reference or if an error, review: Solana documentation instructions for more info: https://solana.com/docs/intro/installation

1.1 — Verify Node.js is installed (required)

nvm is Node.js Version Manager which allows you to install and switch between multiple versions of Node.js on MacOS. FNM (Fast Node Manager) does that for Windows.

Node.js is used to run various commands, scripts and installers we need. You use NVM to install Node.js versions. If you do not have this we cannot get very far — so confirm that it’s installed.

Check if you have Node installed on your command line:

1. Confirm Node.js installed


node -v

# output, if successful, version may vary

v22.14.0

2. Confirm NVM or FNM installed (example here is MacOS NVM, for Windows use fnm — version)

nvm -v 

# output, if successful, version may vary

0.39.0

3. Confirm pnpm is installed — like npm but much faster

pnpm -v

# output, if successful, version may vary

8.15.7

4. Confirm Rust is installed.

 rustc --version

# output, if successful, version may vary

rustc 1.85.0 (4d91de4e4 2025-02-17)

I have all 4 installed on MacOS in the example above.

Review installs

If any are not installed, you will get an error or no version.

If all worked for you, continue below to Step “2. Install the Solana CLI”
If some or all did NOT work, go to the next step 1.2 to install them.
If you only needed pnpm, run the install below, then skip to Step “2. Install the Solana CLI”
If you need Rust only, you can go to that part in step 1.3.

# Download and install pnpm:
corepack enable pnpm

# Verify pnpm version:
pnpm -v

🙋‍♂️ Do we need pnpm? Yes, it’s faster than npm. Use it exactly the same way if you are familiar with npm just use pnpm instead. If you absolutely cannot for some reason, then it should work to use npm, but my examples will try to stick to pnpm, when possible, so you will have to translate that.

🙋‍♂️ Do we need nvm OR fnm? Yes, you should have one depending on your system. There are times where you may need to switch Node.js versions for what we are working on.

1.2 — Install nvm/fnm, Node.js, pnpm, Rust (if needed)

We will install nvm or fnm, Node.js and pnpm (three installs).

There are several options on how to install.

I put what I recommend for MacOS and Windows below , but you can change some settings with the link here: configurable install instructions depending on several options like your OS (Windows, MacOS, Linux etc.).

Install for MacOS version, Node.js 22, nvm, pnpm:



# Download and install nvm:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/master/install.sh | bash

# in lieu of restarting the shell
\. "$HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh"

# Download and install Node.js:
nvm install 22

# Verify the Node.js version:
node -v # Should print "v22.14.0".
nvm current # Should print "v22.14.0".

# Download and install pnpm:
corepack enable pnpm

# Verify pnpm version:
pnpm -v

Install for Windows version, Node.js 22, fnm, pnpm:

# Download and install fnm:
winget install Schniz.fnm

# Download and install Node.js:
fnm install 22

# Verify the Node.js version:
node -v # Should print "v22.14.0".

# Download and install pnpm:
corepack enable pnpm

# Verify pnpm version:
pnpm -v

1.3 — Rust install

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y

Update your path so it is connected in your terminal:

. "$HOME/.cargo/env"

Check version:

rustc --version

2. Install the Solana CLI

Solana CLI is maintained by Anza (anza.xyz), which took over as the maintainer from Solana Labs. We download the most stable release.

The CLI is like a swiss army knife of getting things done quickly from your local computer, or a server. For example if you want to check an account, make a quick manual transaction or get information.

To install the CLI, open a terminal and run:

sh -c "$(curl -sSfL https://release.anza.xyz/stable/install)"

You may get some additional messages, if so and not sure what to do, see more details at: https://solana.com/docs/intro/installation#install-the-solana-cli

2.1 — Add the CLI to our PATH (connects it to your terminal)

You may need to restart your terminal for it to take effect.

Linux and Windows WSL users:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/share/solana/install/active_release/bin:$PATH"

MacOS only :

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/share/solana/install/active_release/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

source ~/.zshrc

2.2 — Test it by getting the Solana version.

solana --version

# output, version may vary

solana-cli 2.1.16 (src:a5744e79; feat:3271415109, client:Agave)

🥷🏻 ✅ We’re done with the CLI install.

If you need help troubleshooting, try first looking at the Solana CLI Install docs, and also you can ask questions at Solana Stack Exchange.

Also you can ask question in the comments. I will try to help or perhaps somebody else will know!

3. Configure CLI for Devnet

Devnet is where we’ll play — let’s point the CLI there.

This configures the Solana CLI so that the Solana CLI knows that we are specifically using Devnet when we send a transaction or check an account. Otherwise we would have to state in the instructions.

Once it’s configured, you won’t need to specify the network in each command.

Set the network:

solana config set --url https://api.devnet.solana.com

solana config set --url https://api.devnet.solana.com

#output, note: this could vary slightly, 
# key part for this example is RPC URL: https://api.devnet.solana.com

Config File: /path/.config/solana/cli/config.yml
RPC URL: https://api.devnet.solana.com 
WebSocket URL: wss://api.devnet.solana.com/ (computed)
Keypair Path: /Users/[your user]/.config/solana/wallet.json 
Commitment: confirmed

Othe CLI options for this:
solana config set — config <FILEPATH> ←url <URL_OR_MONIKER>| — ws <URL>| — keypair <KEYPAIR>| — commitment <COMMITMENT_LEVEL>>

Config File: /Users/[your user]/.config/solana/cli/config.yml
The path to the configuration file where these settings are saved on your computer. This YAML file stores your CLI preferences (like the URL and wallet). It’s hidden in your home directory under .config/solana/cli/
RPC URL: https://api.devnet.solana.comThe Remote Procedure Call URL, the address your CLI uses to communicate with the Solana blockchain. This confirms all your actions (like airdrops) happen on Devnet, not mainnet or testnet.
WebSocket URL: wss://api.devnet.solana.com/ (computed)The CLI auto-generates this from the RPC URL (replacing https with wss). WebSockets let you listen for events. No need to worry about it right now.
Keypair Path: /Users/[your user]/.config/solana/wallet.jsonThe location of your wallet’s keypair file, which holds your public and private keys. Keep this private and secret. This is a security risk if compromised. Do not keep this on your local PC unencrypted for a real production mainnet. However for development we will, as we are using fake dev SOL.
Commitment: confirmed“Confirmed” means the CLI considers a transaction done once a majority of nodes agree it’s valid (fast, ~1–2 seconds on Devnet). Other options like “finalized” (slower, but more certain) exist, but this is the default. It could affect how quickly your games or actions feel responsive — faster is better for now.

Verify the configuration:

solana config get (should show Devnet URL).

This just gets the same info that was entered in the configuration above. Perhaps you forgot what your settings are.

Check cluster status:

solana cluster-version (confirms connection).

This just confirms that we are connected.

If there is a connection issue it will return an error.

4. Create a Devnet wallet

We are making a Solana CLI text wallet, which may be different than you were expecting if you have not done this before.

A CLI wallet means the wallet is held on your local filesystem, not in the browser like you may be used to. I am purposefully doing this for your learning as it is necessary for certain understandings.
Most people are familiar with a Chrome wallet like Phantom or Backpack wallet. This does the same types of tasks, but it’s only on the CLI, not in your Chrome browser with colors and the UI.
Later in the next tutorial, we will work with a Chrome wallet and talk more about that. But in this case it is just a special text file on your local filesystem.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: This type of wallet file is not encrypted. Therefore, if somebody steals this file they have all your SOL, tokens, money. Only use this with devnet SOL (fake), do not put real SOL in here. Even some top Solana devs have had a CLI wallet compromised before. This file is a security risk and not recommended EXCEPT for our learning/demo purposes with fake devnet SOL.

4.1 — Generate a wallet keypair

When you create your wallet it has a public and a private (secret key), and thus, is called a “keypair”. This file should be kept secret and never given out.

In the command to create it below, you can change the name dev-wallet.json and the absolute file path to whatever you want. I will use wallet-dev.json for examples and for the path it depends on your system so put your path in place of /path/to/file

solana-keygen new --outfile /path/to/file/wallet-dev.json

🥷🏻 Output (example):

Generating a new keypair

For added security, enter a BIP39 passphrase

NOTE! This passphrase improves security of the recovery seed phrase NOT the
keypair file itself, which is stored as insecure plain text

BIP39 Passphrase (empty for none): 

Wrote new keypair to /path/to/file/wallet-dev.json
================================================================================
pubkey: GtYM8YsjXCy2t9WqAgUbuWUpQYAxBLrT2r4u7G1F2S3p
================================================================================
Save this seed phrase and your BIP39 passphrase to recover your new keypair:
[random words will be here there will be twelve keep them secret]

For development/learning, leave passphrase empty. Typically that is not used in development.
Public key: listed is the public key. It’s NOT secret. You can give it out for people to make payments or transfer tokens to you, and may type in to get public account info. This listed public key will be in a format like:

GtYM8YsjXCy2t9WqAgUbuWUpQYAxBLrT2r4u7G1F2S3p

The keypair file: includes private and public key in a binary format.

This is an unencrypted secret file we’re using only for development learning. Do not give it out, because it contains your private key. This is also why its a security risk to have the file on your laptop (unencrypted), which can be stolen by malware. However we are using this wallet only for development (dev tokens). Do not use this for real money, real tokens, on Solana mainnet or in production.

Private key: is a secret. Do not give out. This can be extracted from the keypair file. If anybody gets this they have full access to your wallet and can “drain” (remove all tokens) from your wallet.
“Save this seed phrase”: This is a secret phrase for recovery. Do not give out. The phrase given will be 12 words (“BIP39 phrase”, is the phrase standard) which can be used to recover a wallet. If somebody else gets this they have full access to your wallet.

Remember: you can pick the path/directory and name the wallet file whatever you want and .json, I am just using “wallet-dev” for this.

4.2 — Confirm wallet setup and active

Verify your key

solana-keygen verify <PUBKEY> /path/to/file/wallet-dev.json

Output:

Verification for public key GtYM8YsjXCy2t9WqAgUbuWUpQYAx....: Success

View your current wallet, default:

solana address

For me I’ve used other wallets, so even though I created the wallet above, solana address gave me a different public address the first time.

The reason for that is I have to set the new wallet, my old one is still set as the active wallet.

4.3 — Set active wallet

If you need to change which wallet is active for you.

solana config set --keypair </path/to/file>/wallet-dev.json

# output:

Config File: /path/.config/solana/cli/config.yml
RPC URL: https://api.devnet.solana.com 
WebSocket URL: wss://api.devnet.solana.com/ (computed)
Keypair Path: /path/to/file/wallet-dev.json 
Commitment: confirmed

We previously set devnet
We see the Keypair Path is correct now, it is pointing to our new wallet.

Confirm the address again

solana address

# output
GtYM8YsjXCy2t9WqAgUbuWUpQYAx....

🥷🏻 ✅ Yes, now the address is the public key of our newly created wallet.

5. Get free Devnet SOL with an airdrop

We need free devnet SOL. At this point, we can’t do much with the CLI besides checking information, since the wallet has no SOL.

We can get an “airdrop” of dev SOL though, and then start making some transactions.

This SOL on devnet is not real SOL, so it won’t work to sell it on the live mainnet.

⚠️ Before doing the airdrop note that:

If you are on a VPN or a shared IP it may not work well, because it will rate limit and block if many people make a request from the same IP. So that is the first thing to think about it if it gives you an error.
Also, it is rate limited, you cannot just keep requesting an unlimited amount. Usually you can do 2 SOL every few minutes or an hour, but sometimes it’s less if the network is busy.
If you get an error due to a timeout or rate limit. Wait a while and try again. Or try other methods discussed below.
⚠️ Also do not waste the dev SOL. It’s free, but sometimes there can be rate limits or other issues that prevent you from getting more. Try to accrue some so you do not run out if a delay occurs.

Airdrop:

solana airdrop 1

# Error output - if you get a rate limit error
Error: airdrop request failed. This can happen when the rate limit is reached.

I was getting errors. Sometimes this happens.

Generally, you will fare better if you use an 3rd-party RPC url/api-key (we’re on the default devnet RPC and it gets slammed with a lot of developers). If you want to get one from Helius, then see my article here: Building on Solana: Helius RPCs + Tutorial. Or, follow instructions below for a web dev token faucet.

If you use Helius it’s quite easy you just change the config we did earlier for the network to the Helius url that you are given.

If that does not work, you can use the official Solana.com “faucet”:

Maximum of two requests every 8 hours
I connected my Github (for email/profile only), and I got 5 SOL in dev which a good amount.

https://faucet.solana.com/

✅ “Airdrop successful”

Check your balance with:

# Before airdrop

$ solana balance
0 SOL

# After airdrop

$ solana balance
5 SOL

6. Basic CLI commands for info, time

We can do many other basic commands to get info, which may be useful for various reasons.

Let’s quickly do a few informational CLI commands, just to make sure everything is working. This is a quick win!

Get Solana block time, which shows the timestamp of the latest block on Devnet.

solana block-time

# output

Block: 368007187
Date: 2025-03-17T18:50:11Z

🥷🏻 Possible use cases of block-time:

Real-time game triggers.
Randomness seed for games.
Transaction benchmark timing.
Live event sync with time.

You can also get the Solana epoch:

solana epoch-info

# output

Block height: 355993994
Slot: 368014511
Epoch: 851
Transaction Count: 15336116514
Epoch Slot Range: [367632000..368064000)
Epoch Completed Percent: 88.544%
Epoch Completed Slots: 382511/432000 (49489 remaining)
Epoch Completed Time: 1day 16h 57m 45s/1day 22h 15m 18s (5h 17m 33s remaining)

🥷🏻You could fetch this programmatically for example, to:

Use in a game if you want a special event (like a prize drop) to happen once per epoch.
Track when staking rewards might vest.
Network health checks.
Keep track of other time-based contests or events.

Track the supply of SOL (remember: this is for devnet if you have that configured)

solana supply

# output

Total: 1280289349.0014498 SOL
Circulating: 964424387.3256116 SOL
Non-Circulating: 315864961.67583805 SOL

🥷🏻 You can get a full list by just typing in solana and enter

solana

# output

 account                              Show the contents of an account
 address                              Get your public key
 address-lookup-table                 Address lookup table management
 airdrop                              Request SOL from a faucet
 authorize-nonce-account              Assign account authority to a new entity
 balance                              Get your balance
 block                                Get a confirmed block

... etc

7. CLI for transactions, review in Solscan.io

We can do a transfer of tokens, to verify the wallet is working easily by sending to another public address. You can even send to your own wallet, from your wallet — it was still register as a transfer!

Also, we expect a small reduction in balance because all transactions have a network fee.

First get a public address that you can check. You can use your own address even and get it again like this:

solana address

# output, example my address
GtYM8YsjXCy2t9...

Now lets do a transfer to the public address you want to check or even to ourselves (I tried it and it works!):

# transfer
solana transfer <PUBLIC_ADDRESS> 0.01 --no-wait

# output, will be different for your transaction
Signature: 2DJe8mZg7Pwbxx4RzN3oE3TJiGMr1nCo87zgvY1M67eZ2...

# check balance
solana balance
4.999995 SOL

✅ We sent the .01 SOL to the public address. If you used your own address you can do that too! It’s not at 5 anymore because there was a small network transaction fee, so it is 4.999995 SOL.

We will use the Signature in a moment, so keep it.

8. View in Solscan.io block explorer

Solscan.io is one of several Solana block explorers. We will deep dive block explorers, at some point, they are fascinating, but that will be in a later tutorial! We just want to check that our transaction is there.

Go there now: https://solscan.io/

A Solana block explorer, gives you all the detailed info about a transaction, token, NFT or account on the blockchain, and additional info such as a history of transactions for an account, and more.

If you have never used or changed it, it defaults to using mainnet (live Solana) for all lookups.

Since we are using Devnet and not mainnet, we need to switch it to use Devnet for our searches.

Click on the Solana logo, click it to open the dropdown and switch to Devnet.

For example, see the red boxes: https://solscan.io/

I copied the transaction signature from earlier and pasted it into the search bar.

Notice that it says Transaction (1), it was found.

Right away it is found in the dropdown.

I click through on that search.

🥷🏻 ✅ Now, I confirm below that

I am on Devnet,
for signature 2DJe8m… that I entered
my transaction was processed 16 minutes ago,
my wallet GtYM8Y… signed the transaction
the transaction was between my own wallet GtYM8Y… and my wallet GtYM8Y.
It was a transfer of 0.01 SOL.

Other Solana Block Explorers

I don’t want leave you the impression that Solscan is the only block explorer there are many other and some prefer the others because they may provide extra features.

Other popular ones:

Solana Explorer
https://explorer.solana.com/

Solana.FM
https://solana.fm/

Helius Orb (formerly Xray, in Beta)
https://orb.helius.dev/?cluster=mainnet-beta

These are just a few.

9. Solana Toolkit / “Mucho” (new CLI helpers)

There is a brand new library called Solana Toolkit (aka “Mucho” library) that is a wrapper for the CLI. It is supposed to make some things easier with the CLI and is built for developers. It just came out recently.

Since it is new, I’ve not used it extensively. In fact I didn’t even know it existed until I got to this point writing the article 🤣.

It looks useful, but this is just an introduction and to let you know it exists. It is in Beta. Also it tries to install some other dependencies. Some I had, some I did not. So it could take a few minutes to install.

GitHub - solana-foundation/mucho: Command-line tool that simplifies the development and testing of…

Command-line tool that simplifies the development and testing of Solana blockchain programs. - solana-foundation/mucho

github.com

Is this a required tool? No, it is an optional, but useful, toolkit, it may help you but if you cannot install it, you can inquire at the repo for any help you need. I had one glitch (a warning error), however, it did work after that without me doing any debugging (as far as I know so far)

“This is a beta version of the Solana Toolkit, and is still a WIP. Please post all feedback as a GitHub issue here.”

You can install it like this: npx -y mucho@latest install

npx -y mucho@latest install

# output

mucho update available - v0.9.0 
   To install the latest version, run the following command:
   npx mucho@latest self-update

 Install Solana development tools 
✔ mucho 0.9.0 installed
ℹ rust 1.85.0 is already installed

From Docs:

install - Install and manage the Solana Toolkit's local development tooling on your system.
clone - Clone accounts and programs (aka fixtures) from any Solana cluster desired and declared in the Solana.toml.
validator - Run the solana-test-validator on your local machine, including loading all the cloned fixtures for your repo.
build - Build all or a single Solana program in your workspace.
deploy - Deploy a Solana program in your workspace.
coverage - Run code coverage tests on a Solana program.
info - Gather helpful troubleshooting info about your setup.
docs - Show the documentation for the Solana development tools.
balance - Get an account's balances for all clusters.
inspect - Inspect transactions, accounts, and block in the CLI (like a block explorer)

Get version:

mucho --version

# output

mucho 0.9.0
rustc 1.85.0 (4d91de4e4 2025-02-17)
node v22.14.0
solana-cli 2.1.16 (src:a5744e79; feat:3271415109, client:Agave)
solana platform tools:
  build-sbf: 2.1.1
  platform-tools: 1.43

You can get info about your system like this:

npx mucho info

# output

--- start mucho info ---
System Info:
[your system info]
------------------------
Installed tooling:
  rustup: 1.28.1
  rust: 1.85.0
  solana: 2.1.1
  avm: 0.30.0
  anchor: 0.30.1
  node: 22.14.0
  yarn: 1.22.2
  trident: false
  zest: false
  cargo-update: 16.2.0
  verify: false
------------------------
Platform tools:
  build-sbf: ---
  platform-tools: ---
------------------------
Solana CLI info:
  Config File: [path]/.config/solana/cli/config.yml
  RPC URL: https://api.devnet.solana.com 
  WebSocket URL: wss://api.devnet.solana.com/ (computed)
  Keypair Path: [path]/wallets/wallet-dev.json 
  
  Commitment: confirmed
Does CLI config.yml exist: true
Address: G....
Balances for address:
  devnet: 4.9995 SOL
  mainnet: 0 SOL
  testnet: 0 SOL
  localnet: false
Is test-validator running? false
Localnet url: http://127.0.0.1:8899
---- end mucho info ----

I’m tempted to cover token creation now, but we’ll save that for later!

I have done that myself with the CLI several times, but perhaps next time we will use mucho

10. 🥷🏻Secret Solana CLI Commands (bonus)

As I was writing this article ANOTHER SOLANA CLI related site came out.

This is … it’s like the 2nd time in 3 days 😁

This is NOT required to know, in fact many of these I didn’t know about and I’ve been in the ecosystem a few years.

I am not going to do a full review here, but you may want to take a look at this to become a guru.

May be interesting.

There is a list of commands, and you can get more info on each command such as here:

In review, we’ve made a good start.

✅ Our goal was to get a lot of the required Solana libraries installed. They will come in handy for later tasks.

✅ We learned about the Solana CLI. There is much more you can do, but this got you started and we completed some useful tasks.

✅ We tried some new tools like Mucho that may come in handy later.

Next we are going to look at making some basic utility scripts with Javascript, Typescript, and Node.js and wallet integration with Next.js framework. If you got here before that article is posted, I will be adding that soon next 2–3 or less!

After that we will venture into Solana Anchor and Rust in the 3rd part of this setup series of articles.

🚀 Then, we will be ready to start doing fun Solana apps! You will be able to refer to the first 3 tutorials (CLI, Javascript/Node.js/Next.js, and Anchor/Rust) as you continue…

🔥 Get excited, you are on the cusp of great things with being part of the Solana ecosystem!

Other Solana Resources:

I may update these for changes/new resources.

Solana Docs: The official documentation for learning and using the Solana blockchain, including setup guides, APIs, and protocol details.

Solana Faucet: A web tool that gives you free Devnet SOL for testing Solana apps without spending real tokens.

Solana Cookbook: A developer-friendly guide with practical, code-focused recipes for building apps and smart contracts on Solana.

Solana Stack Overflow: A community Q&A site where developers can ask and answer technical questions related to Solana development.

Solana Developers GitHub: The GitHub organization where Solana core and community developers collaborate, share tools, and maintain open source Solana projects.

Awesome Solana: My original repo. Huge, a few years old and there are broken links that I will update soon. Check again if it hasn’t been updated recently.

🥰 Thanks for reading! … 🔥 please clap and share this article, thanks! 🚀

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About Me

I’m a cloud architect, senior developer and tech lead who enjoys solving high-value challenges with innovative solutions.

I’m always open to discussing projects. If you need help on a project, have an opportunity or simply want to chat about a cloud problem, you can reach me at csjcode at gmail.

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I’ve worked 20+ years in software development, both in an enterprise setting such as NIKE and the original MP3.com, as well as startups like FreshPatents, SystemsArchitect.io, API.cc, and Instantiate.io.

My experience ranges from cloud ecommerce, API design/implementation, serverless, AI integration for development, content management, frontend UI/UX architecture and login/authentication. I give tech talks, tutorials and share documentation for architecting software. Also previously held AWS Solutions Architect certification.

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