Anchor is a framework for writing, testing, and deploying Solana programs, the Solana equivalent of smart contracts.
Developed by Coral, Anchor has become the most widely adopted development framework in the Solana ecosystem. It’s the standard tool taught in developer education programs, including Ackee School of Solana.
Anchor provides several key functionalities:
- Rust crates and eDSL (embedded domain-specific language) for writing Solana programs with less boilerplate code
- IDL specification (Interface Description Language) that defines program interfaces
- TypeScript package for automatically generating clients from IDL files
- CLI and workspace management for streamlined project setup and builds
For developers familiar with Ethereum tooling, Anchor offers a comparable experience to Truffle or Hardhat. It abstracts away much of Solana’s low-level complexity, letting developers focus on program logic rather than serialization and account management.
When auditing Solana programs, Ackee security researchers work extensively with Anchor-based codebases, analyzing both the Rust program logic and the generated IDL interfaces for potential vulnerabilities.
