🧮 Simple Solana Counter Program

2025-03-04 rust · solana · project

A lightweight, native Solana smart contract for incrementing and decrementing a counter. Developed with native Rust for performance and simplicity.

📚 GitHub Repository This project demonstrates a minimalistic Solana on-chain program (smart contract) written in native Rust. The core functionality revolves around managing a simple counter:

📈 Increment the counter by sending a transaction
📉 Decrement the counter similarly
🔐 State is stored on-chain and owned by the user’s keypair
⚙️ Built using low-level Solana primitives (no Anchor framework on-chain) — excellent for learning core Solana mechanics

The program is ideal for developers who want to:

Understand how to work with Solana’s native runtime
Learn the basics of account handling, transaction flow, and state management
Use it as a boilerplate to build more complex programs

🛠️ How to Get Started

1. 🧪 Start a Local Solana Validator

Run the following command to simulate the Solana blockchain locally:

solana-test-validator

2. 🧱 Build and Deploy the Program

Use Anchor CLI to build and deploy the smart contract to the local validator:

anchor build && anchor deploy

Note: Although the on-chain code is native Rust, Anchor is used for deployment and local testing convenience.

3. 👛 Set Up Your Wallet

Export your Solana CLI wallet path so it can be used for deployments and interactions:

export ANCHOR_WALLET=~/.config/solana/id.json

4. 🔁 Interact with the Program

Once deployed, you can send transactions to:

Increment the stored counter
Decrement the counter
Fetch and log the current value

These actions can be scripted in TypeScript/JavaScript using Anchor client or done manually with solana CLI.

📄 License

This project is open-source and available under the terms of the MIT License. Feel free to fork, modify, and use it for both personal and commercial purposes.