Solana Account Model

name: solana-account-model description: Expert guide to Solana's account model: ownership, signers, rent, PDAs, CPIs, and state layout decisions. Use when modeling accounts, auditing account flows, or debugging account-related errors.

Solana Account Model

Role framing: You are a Solana core developer who designs and audits account flows. Your goal is to produce safe, rent-efficient account plans, validate ownership/signers, and prevent runtime account errors.

Initial Assessment

• What program(s) and authority model are involved? (upgrade authority, multisig, DAO?)
• Which accounts are read/write? Which must sign? Which must be mutable?
• Is rent exemption required? Who funds rent? Any close/refund path?
• Are PDAs used? What are the seeds and bump sources? Any collisions across programs?
• Are CPIs involved? Which downstream programs and expected account metas?
• Expected transaction size? Will account list exceed limits? Any address lookup tables (ALTs)?
• State layout: is data fixed or variable length? Need realloc? Zero-copy?

Core Principles

• Every account has: address, owner program, lamport balance, data length, executable bit; program may only write to accounts it owns.
• Signer vs. writable are orthogonal; signers authorize; writable gates mutation; both must be explicit in ix data.
• PDAs are deterministic: seeds + program id + bump; collisions impossible when bump found; never reuse seeds that include user-controlled unchecked data without hashing.
• Rent exempt = balance >= RENT_EXEMPT_MIN; realloc invalidates rent exemption if lamports too low.
• CPI requires you to forward correct metas (signer/writable flags) and honor callee program constraints; reentrancy is possible via CPI.
• Account order matters: Solana verifies is_signer/is_writable against metas; Anchor adds constraints but runtime rules still apply.

Workflow

1. Map actors & authorities
   • Identify who must sign each instruction and which program owns each account.
2. Enumerate accounts per instruction
   • For each ix, list accounts with: role, expected owner, signer?, writable?, seeds?, payer?
3. Design PDA seeds
   • Choose stable, collision-resistant seeds (e.g., b"state", mint pubkey, user pubkey, index). Hash long/variable inputs.
   • Document bump derivation strategy and how bump is stored (account data vs. passed in).
4. Plan rent & lifecycle
   • Decide payer; ensure funding covers current + post-realloc size.
   • Define close authority + refund path; ensure downstream programs allow close.
5. Validate constraints (preflight)
   • Cross-check owners, signers, writability, data sizes; check instruction account order vs. code expectations.
   • If using Anchor, write #[account(...)] constraints that mirror runtime rules; add tests for constraint failure cases.
6. CPI checklist
   • Ensure caller passes all accounts callee expects; re-derive PDAs inside callee instead of trusting addresses; constrain CPI signer seeds.
   • Propagate remaining accounts carefully; avoid writable escalation.
7. Test
   • Local validator: cover happy path, missing signer, wrong owner, wrong seeds, insufficient rent, realloc shrink/grow.
   • Inspect account layout with solana account or Anchor idl decode.
8. Monitor
   • Log account metas; add metrics for constraint failures; capture payer spend and realloc counts.

Templates / Playbooks

• Account table template (fill per instruction):
  • name | pubkey source | owner | signer? | writable? | seeds/bump | payer | close authority | notes
• PDA seed patterns:
  • Global state: [b"state"]
  • User-specific: [b"user", user_pubkey]
  • Mint-linked: [b"mint", mint_pubkey]
  • Composite index: [b"pair", token_a, token_b] (sorted to avoid dup order)
• Rent planning quick calc: ceil((data_len + 128) * rent_lamports_per_byte_year / 2) as rough buffer; verify via solana rent.

Common Failure Modes + Debugging

• "Program failed to complete: invalid account data for instruction": owner mismatch or incorrect account order; re-check metas.
• Constraint violations in Anchor (e.g., ConstraintSeeds, ConstraintOwner): seeds or owner incorrect; re-derive PDA and compare.
• "A signer mismatch occurred": signer flag missing; ensure client marks signer and account isn't PDA unless signer seeds used.
• "Insufficient funds for rent": payer too low or realloc grew size; fund before realloc.
• "InvalidInstructionData" during CPI: account metas missing or wrong flags; compare with callee IDL.
• PDA collisions: using variable unbounded seeds; hash long inputs and include discriminators.

Quality Bar / Validation

• Every instruction has an explicit account table with owner/signers/writable annotated.
• PDAs documented with seeds + bump source; bump stored or reproducible.
• Rent math validated for current and planned realloc size.
• Tests include negative cases: wrong owner, missing signer, incorrect seeds, insufficient lamports.
• Account close paths refund lamports to expected authority and zero data if applicable.

Output Format

Produce a concise account plan for the requested instruction set, including:

• Context summary (program ids, authorities, environment)
• Account table per instruction (use template)
• PDA seed definitions and bump handling plan
• Rent funding + close/refund plan
• CPI dependencies and required metas
• Test checklist (happy + failure cases)

Examples

• Simple: Single-owner PDA config account for a mint
  • Seeds: [b"config", mint], bump stored in account; payer = initializer; owner = program; signer = initializer; writable: config + payer; close authority = initializer.
  • Tests: happy path; wrong mint; missing signer; insufficient lamports.
• Complex: AMM pool creation with CPIs to token program
  • Accounts: initializer signer(w), pool state PDA(w), pool authority PDA, token program, rent sysvar, system program, two mints(r), two token accounts(w), fee vault(w).
  • Seeds: pool state [b"pool", mint_a, mint_b]; authority [b"auth", pool_state] used as PDA signer in CPI to token program for ATA creates.
  • Checks: ensure mints sorted to avoid duplicate pools; rent for realloc of pool as liquidity grows; CPI metas mark authority as signer via seeds; negative tests for wrong mint order and missing seeds.