My Solana Program Launch Checklist (Written the Day After I Actually Did It)

Short summary

A practical, step-by-step checklist for deploying a Solana program to mainnet-beta, written immediately after the author's first successful launch. It covers pre-deploy testing on devnet, verifiable builds, rent calculation, program ID syncing, security audits, the irreversible deploy phase with dedicated RPC and priority fees, and recovery procedures for stalled deploys. Each step includes exact CLI commands and warnings about common pitfalls like SOL leakage from re-running interrupted deploys.

• •Complete pre-deploy checklist: test on devnet, produce verifiable build, sync program ID, run security audit
• •Deploy phase is irreversible — confirm mainnet-beta config, check wallet balance, use dedicated RPC with priority fees
• •Stalled deploys leave SOL in buffer accounts; recover with solana program show --buffers instead of re-running from scratch

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.