Solana Programs.

The official examples, explained.

All 52, read end to end — real source and real tests on the page, in the order the concepts build. Readable on a plane, in a café, anywhere. All four volumes are out now.

Get the complete series · $29 or start with Basics · $9 →

EPUB + PDF, no DRM · free lifetime updates

01 — The Method

Not a tutorial. A guided reading.

The real code, quoted

Every chapter quotes the official program and its actual test suite from a pinned commit — nothing paraphrased, nothing invented. The early volumes walk every file line by line; the later ones quote the passages that carry the idea, because by then you can read the rest. Either way the code is on the page, so it reads on an e-reader, on paper, on a plane. No laptop required.

Explained like a code review

Concept first, then the source walked through piece by piece — with diagrams where the idea has shape.

Critically read

Not a transcription. Every program is read the way you would read a colleague's pull request: what it does, why it does it that way, and what to watch for when you write your own.

Pinned and reproducible

The whole series is written against one pinned commit of the repository. Every chapter links the exact source, so what you read is what you run.

02 — The Books

The four volumes

Solana Programs — Basics cover

Volume 01 Start here

Basics

The mental model everything else builds on

Anchor primer · 15 programs · native/Pinocchio appendix · glossary

  • Accounts, PDAs, CPIs, and rent — learned from running code, not analogies
  • Every program's full source and real test suite, explained line by line
  • The same Hello World in Anchor, native Rust, and Pinocchio — so frameworks become a choice

After this volume: You can read any Anchor program and know exactly what it does.

Get Basics · $9
Solana Programs — Tokens cover

Volume 02

Tokens

From your first mint to a working AMM

SPL token primer · 10 programs · glossary

  • Mints, token accounts, NFTs, and collections — the whole SPL machine
  • Escrow, fundraiser, and token-swap programs read end to end
  • Escrow and AMM design read closely enough to spot what a reviewer would

After this volume: Mints, NFTs, escrows, and AMMs hold no mysteries.

Included in the complete series

Solana Programs — Token Extensions cover

Volume 03

Token Extensions

Token-2022, the complete tour

Token-2022 primer · 21 programs · glossary

  • TLV extensions explained from the bytes up
  • Transfer fees, interest-bearing balances, permanent delegates, metadata, and more — one program each
  • Seven transfer-hook programs, from hello-world to a whitelist gate

After this volume: You can audit what any Token-2022 mint can and cannot do.

Included in the complete series

Solana Programs — Frontiers cover

Volume 04

Frontiers

Where the examples get serious

6 programs · compression, oracles, tools, games · glossary

  • State compression and cNFTs — mint, verify, and custody by Merkle proof
  • Pyth price feeds, and the checklist that separates demos from production
  • A production-grade Pinocchio capstone with LiteSVM tests and generated clients

After this volume: Nothing in the ecosystem reads like magic anymore.

Included in the complete series

03 — Pricing

Two ways in

Start here

$9 Basics

  • 15 programs, every one walked line by line — the whole account model, from Hello World to laying out a real repository
  • EPUB + PDF, no DRM
  • Free lifetime updates: new editions as the examples evolve
Get Basics · $9

Everything

$29 The complete series

  • All four volumes — 52 programs across Basics, Tokens, Token Extensions and Frontiers, read in the order the concepts build
  • EPUB + PDF of all four, no DRM
  • Free lifetime updates: new editions as the examples evolve
Get the complete series · $29

VAT added at checkout where applicable

04 — FAQ

FAQ

Who is this for?

Developers learning Solana seriously — you want to actually understand the official examples instead of copy-pasting them. Coming from web2 is the normal case: you already know how to program, Solana just has different physics — accounts instead of objects, programs that hold no state — and that shift is exactly what the books teach.

Do I need to know Rust?

Read The Rust Book for the language; read these for Solana. Basics help, mastery doesn't — if you can read a Rust function signature you can follow along, and the books explain the Rust idioms they use (ownership at account boundaries, traits, macros) as they appear. TypeScript shows up in the test suites at the same level.

Is this official?

No. An independent, unofficial companion to the official examples and documentation — not published by, and not speaking for, the Solana Foundation.

Is quoting the examples allowed?

Yes. solana-foundation/program-examples is MIT licensed, © 2026 Solana Foundation. Every excerpt is credited, pinned to the exact commit, and carries the copyright notice on each book's Licenses page. The book's own prose and diagrams are separately copyright Moviendome Limited.

Aren't there already Solana books?

Barely. What exists is a self-published title from 2022 — written before Anchor's big changes — some print-on-demand filler, and one chapter of a multi-chain Rust book. No major technical publisher has a Solana book at all. Rust developers got The Book; Solana developers got browser tabs. That gap is why this series exists.

How was it made?

Written with heavy AI assistance (Claude), directed and reviewed by a human author. Every program re-read from source at a pinned commit, every test quoted from the repository.

What can I buy today?

All four volumes. Basics — $9, and it assumes nothing — is the place to start. Tokens, Token Extensions and Frontiers build on it and are sold together as the complete series: $29 for all four. Start with Basics either way: the other three are written to build on it, and Frontiers opens by telling you it assumes all three.

Do I pay VAT?

Depends where you are. Gumroad is the merchant of record for these books, so it calculates, collects and remits any VAT or sales tax based on your country, and it is added at checkout. US buyers typically pay nothing; EU and UK buyers see their local rate. You get a proper invoice from Gumroad either way, which is what you need if you are expensing it.

What exactly do I get?

EPUB and PDF files of everything you buy, DRM-free, delivered by Gumroad — plus every future edition at no extra cost.

What happens when the examples change?

The series is pinned to an exact commit, and we track the official repository continuously. When it moves meaningfully, a new edition ships — and you already own it.

Why not just read the repository?

You should — these books exist to make that reading stick. The repository gives you the code; the books give you the order, the concepts, the diagrams, and the explanation the code doesn't carry.

05 — Author

Jose Ferrer

Author

Hello, I am Jose Ferrer — twenty years a full-stack developer, now building on Solana. I wrote these books by reading every official example line by line. I am a genesis member of Superteam Thailand.