This is a weekly newsletter on the latest Solana engineering news this week. If you want to stay updated on Solana tech every week, follow Solana Changelog at @solana_devs and @readylayerone and turn on notifications.
Releases
Several validator client, program SDK, and developer tooling releases landed this week. Builders can review each release tag for version-specific changes and upgrade notes.
Validator clients
- Anza shipped Agave v4.3.0-alpha.1, v4.2.0-beta.1, and v4.1.2.
- Firedancer shipped Testnet v1.1.0.
- Frankendancer shipped Testnet v0.1102.40201 and Mainnet v0.1006.40100.
Solana Program JavaScript SDKs
The Solana Program SDK releases covered core programs and related libraries used by app and tooling developers.
- Address Lookup Table Program JS SDK shipped v0.13.0.
- Stake Program JS SDK shipped v0.8.0.
- System Program JS SDK shipped v0.13.0.
- Memo Program JS SDK shipped v0.12.0.
- Compute Budget Program JS SDK shipped v0.17.0.
- Token Program JS SDK shipped v0.15.0.
- Token2022 shipped JS SDK v0.13.0 and Legacy JS SDK v0.4.15.
- Loader V3 Program JS SDK shipped v0.5.0.
- Solana Stake Pool Program shipped v2.1.0.
- Record Program JS SDK shipped v0.3.0.
- Program Metadata Program JS SDK shipped v0.8.0.
- ZK Elgamal Proof Program JS SDK shipped v0.3.2.
- Token Wrap Program JS SDK shipped v2.6.0.
Developer tooling
Testing and local development tools also published new versions.
- LiteSVM shipped v0.14.0.
- Mollusk shipped 4.2.0-beta.0 and v0.14.0.
- Surfpool shipped v1.5.0.
Ecosystem work
Validator clients (Agave, Firedancer, Mithril)
Core contributors continued work on runtime limits and validator client performance. The changes focus on earlier error handling, validator configuration, stake reward calculation, packet handling, and transaction sending.
- Contributors proposed a Solana Improvement Documents (SIMDs) change to detect the maximum number of top-level instructions early. Today, the runtime counts each instruction as it executes and throws an error when it hits a limit; counting limits ahead of execution would let the runtime skip transactions earlier and move on to transactions that do not hit those limits.
- Anza is exploring custom Agave configurations in a separate file. Running Agave through the CLI currently requires custom parameters through CLI flags, while a TOML, YAML, or JSON file could make the experience less fragile and more repeatable.
- Anza is adding support for Agave to load stake account hashes in parallel during the epoch boundary. The change speeds up preparation of old stake account values for staking reward calculation; stake rewards are calculated at the end of each epoch, and slow reward processing leaves less space for user transactions.
- Anza is working on Agave support to share XDP memory space between threads sending packets to Solana Turbine. The performance improvement decouples network address and packet header preparation from the thread responsible for sending data to the XDP route.
- Anza is improving Agave’s path for sending transactions from the Solana client interface to validator nodes. The Solana client lets other software communicate directly with validator nodes, and this change keeps the client compatible with recent improvements to where and how validator nodes receive transactions; in this case, the goal is to improve uploading Solana programs onchain.
Solana language clients and program libraries
Solana language clients and program libraries advanced support for core program functionality. These changes span Web3.js, Solana Go, and SPL-related work.
- Web3.js is adding support for the ZK Elgamal Proof Program. The ZK Elgamal Proof Program enables confidential balances on Solana through a Token2022 Extension, and support in Web3.js expands its coverage of Core BPF programs.
- Solana Go is adding support to serialize and deserialize Account state. The functionality is expected across language clients and keeps Solana Go compatible with the Solana Rust SDK.
- The ed25519 programmatic signer program project is starting to flesh out functionality with its nonce program. The project is similar to Blueshift’s Vector, which replaces the need for durable nonces, and is creating a new implementation that will be part of the Solana Program Library.
Frameworks, testing, and developer education
Program frameworks and testing tools continued preparing release and scenario-testing support. Developer education materials also received updates for current Solana app development flows.
- Quasar is preparing to cut a v0.1.0 release. Quasar has not made a release yet, and v0.1.0 would be its first.
- Surfpool is adding scenario testing support. Dynamic scenario testing helps developers see how programs behave under different external conditions.
- Solana Dev Skill updated instructions for creating apps on Solana, including Web3.js changes, Kit updates, and Surfpool as a testing environment.
Other interesting things
Developers and community members shared validator, Rust, CLI, and decentralization updates across the ecosystem.
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Community members held the Community Validator Discussion from 2026-07-09.
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@dev_jodee shared Subscriptions and Allowances program updates.
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@vyralabs shared technical notes from running a Solana validator.
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@clairefxyz from @blueshift wrote about no_std in Rust.
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@cavemanloverboy shared an update to vanity, a CLI for grinding Solana keypairs.
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@jacobvcreech shared thoughts on validator node count and decentralization.
