Deploy to Devnet

You've built the complete counter program. Now compile it one final time and learn how to deploy it.

Final Build

The starter code is your complete counter program. Hit Build to compile it. When it succeeds, you'll see a Build UUID in the output — this is the identifier for your compiled .so binary.

What Happens After Build

The build server compiled your Rust code into a Solana program binary (.so file). To deploy it to Devnet, you'd run:

# Download the compiled binary
curl -H 'X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY' \
  https://build-server-url/deploy/YOUR_UUID \
  -o program.so

# Deploy to Devnet
solana program deploy program.so --url devnet

The solana program deploy command:

1. Uploads the binary to a buffer account
2. Creates the program account
3. Sets the program as executable
4. Returns the Program ID — the on-chain address of your program

Interacting with Your Program

Once deployed, anyone can call your program's instructions:

// TypeScript client using Anchor
const program = new Program(idl, programId, provider);

// Initialize a counter
await program.methods
  .initialize()
  .accounts({ counter: counterKeypair.publicKey })
  .signers([counterKeypair])
  .rpc();

// Increment
await program.methods
  .increment()
  .accounts({ counter: counterKeypair.publicKey })
  .rpc();

What You've Accomplished

You wrote a Solana program from scratch:

• 4 instructions: initialize, greet, increment, decrement
• Account management: init with payer, mutable state, space calculation
• Error handling: Custom error enum with underflow protection
• Compilation: cargo-build-sbf via the build server

This counter program follows the same patterns used by every production Anchor program on Solana. The complexity scales, but the fundamentals are the same.

Next Steps

• DeFi on Solana course — build a token vault with PDAs and CPIs
• Deploy locally — install the Solana CLI and Anchor to build on your machine
• Read the Anchor Book — book.anchor-lang.com