Devnet Investigation Challenge

A bad beginner challenge asks you to reverse-engineer a random devnet program before you can even explain a normal transfer cleanly.

That is not a good foundations test.

A good foundations challenge asks a simpler question:

Can you observe one real transaction, inspect the accounts around it, and explain what changed without hand-waving?

That is what this challenge is for.

What You Need To Prove

By the end of this challenge, you should be able to show all of these clearly:

• the sender account before the transfer
• the recipient account before the transfer
• the transaction signature that was produced
• the sender account after the transfer
• the recipient account after the transfer
• a short explanation of who signed, who received funds, and why the balances changed the way they did

If you can do that without guessing, this section is working.

The Challenge Setup

Use the same two wallets from the earlier lessons:

• wallet1.json as the sender
• wallet2.json as the recipient

And use the toolkit commands you already built:

• balance.ts
• inspect.ts
• send.ts

If your toolkit lives in kit-toolkit/, all the examples below assume you are inside that directory.

The Real Goal

This challenge is not really about sending another 0.01 SOL transfer.

It is about learning to observe a state change properly.

A lot of new developers can send a transaction. Far fewer can answer these basic questions cleanly afterward:

• which account authorized the change
• which account received value
• why the sender lost slightly more than the recipient gained
• what the account output looked like before and after
• where the transaction can be verified independently

That is the skill you are testing here.

Step-by-Step Challenge

pnpm tsx scripts/balance.ts $(solana address -k wallet1.json)
pnpm tsx scripts/balance.ts $(solana address -k wallet2.json)

pnpm tsx scripts/inspect.ts $(solana address -k wallet1.json)
pnpm tsx scripts/inspect.ts $(solana address -k wallet2.json)

pnpm tsx scripts/send.ts wallet1.json $(solana address -k wallet2.json) 0.01

pnpm tsx scripts/balance.ts $(solana address -k wallet1.json)
pnpm tsx scripts/balance.ts $(solana address -k wallet2.json)
pnpm tsx scripts/inspect.ts $(solana address -k wallet1.json)
pnpm tsx scripts/inspect.ts $(solana address -k wallet2.json)

https://explorer.solana.com/tx/<SIGNATURE>?cluster=devnet

# Devnet Investigation Report

## Accounts
- Sender: <wallet1 address>
- Recipient: <wallet2 address>

## Before
- Sender balance:
- Recipient balance:

## Transaction
- Signature:
- Program used:
- Who signed:
- Who paid the fee:

## After
- Sender balance:
- Recipient balance:

## What Changed
- Explain the balance movement in 3-5 sentences.
- Explain why the sender lost slightly more than the recipient gained.
- Explain why the recipient did not need to sign to receive funds.

What a Good Answer Looks Like

A strong report does not just say “the transaction worked.”

It says something closer to this:

• wallet1 signed and paid the fee
• wallet2 received 0.01 SOL
• the transfer used the System Program
• the sender balance dropped by the transfer amount plus a network fee
• the recipient account remained a normal system-owned wallet account

That is the level of precision you want.

Optional Stretch Task

If you finish the main challenge comfortably, add one small improvement to your toolkit:

• print both the signature and Explorer URL directly from send.ts

That is useful because it closes the loop between your script output and public verification.

Common Mistakes

Summary

This challenge tests whether you can do more than run commands.

You used your toolkit to:

• inspect real accounts
• send a real devnet transaction
• verify the result in more than one place
• explain the state change in precise language

That is a real beginner milestone.

It means you are no longer just copying Solana commands. You are starting to reason about what the network actually did.