Build
Testing
Unit, integration and devnet smoke — and why anchor test is not end-to-end.
The pyramid the official Solana skill recommends:
| Level | Tool | For |
|---|---|---|
| Unit | LiteSVM (Rust and TS) · Mollusk | Running instructions in-process, in milliseconds |
| Integration | Surfpool (surfpool start) |
A solana-test-validator replacement that pulls mainnet accounts on demand: you test against the real Jupiter, Pyth or USDC without touching mainnet |
| Devnet smoke | anchor test --skip-deploy against devnet |
The closest thing to what the judges will see. Without --skip-deploy, anchor test redeploys: do not run it against devnet minutes before the demo |
A green anchor test is the difference between a demo and a promise. If you use AI, ask it for tests, not just code. And walk the real flow in the browser — login, signature, confirmation — at least once a day: anchor test never touches the frontend.
More: Bankrun (fast tests), solana-verifiable-build for verifiable builds.