Solana Glossary

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The most comprehensive Solana glossary ever built — 1059 terms, 14 categories, full cross-references, and i18n support. Packaged as an SDK.

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Why This Exists

The original Solana Glossary was one of the most loved resources in the ecosystem — a single place where any developer could look up unfamiliar Solana concepts and immediately get context.

Over time, it got absorbed into generic "Terminology" docs and lost its identity.

Superteam Brazil is bringing it back — expanded from ~200 terms to 1059, structured as a proper npm package, and designed to actually ship value:

• Onboarding — New devs get instant context on 1059 Solana concepts
• Go deeper — Seasoned devs explore cross-referenced technical relationships between terms
• Vibe coders — AI-assisted builders can understand what's behind the abstractions
• Save tokens — Feed glossary context to LLMs instead of burning tokens re-explaining Solana concepts every prompt

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Install

npm i @stbr/solana-glossary

pnpm add @stbr/solana-glossary

yarn add @stbr/solana-glossary

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MCP Server

The glossary ships with a built-in MCP server — 10 AI tools accessible from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client.

Setup (Claude Code / Claude Desktop)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "solana-glossary": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@stbr/solana-glossary"]
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

Tool	Description
lookup_term	Look up a term by ID or alias
search_glossary	Full-text search across terms
browse_category	List all terms in a category
filter_by_depth	Filter by knowledge depth (1-5)
filter_by_tag	Filter by tag (e.g., "token-2022", "jito")
get_related	Traverse the knowledge graph
inject_context	Token-optimized context block for LLM prompts
glossary_stats	Glossary metadata and statistics
list_categories	All 14 categories with counts
list_tags	All 16 tags with counts

All tools support optional locale parameter ("pt" or "es") for localized results.

AI Skill

The package includes an AI skill with instructions for AI agents on when and how to use the glossary tools.

Install it with skills-npm:

npm skill add @stbr/solana-glossary

Or copy skills/solana-glossary/SKILL.md into your project's .claude/skills/ directory.

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Quick Start

import { getTerm, searchTerms, getTermsByCategory, allTerms } from "@stbr/solana-glossary";

// Look up a term by ID
const poh = getTerm("proof-of-history");
console.log(poh?.definition);

// Look up by alias
const same = getTerm("PoH"); // Same result

// Search across names, definitions, and aliases
const results = searchTerms("account");

// Get all terms in a category
const defiTerms = getTermsByCategory("defi");

// Access everything
console.log(`${allTerms.length} terms loaded`); // 1059

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API Reference

getTerm(idOrAlias: string): GlossaryTerm | undefined

Look up a term by its exact ID or any of its aliases (case-insensitive for aliases).

getTerm("pda");           // by ID
getTerm("PDA");           // by alias → same term
getTerm("nonexistent");   // undefined

searchTerms(query: string): GlossaryTerm[]

Full-text search across term names, definitions, IDs, and aliases. Case-insensitive.

searchTerms("proof of history"); // finds PoH and related terms
searchTerms("AMM");              // finds AMM-related terms

getTermsByCategory(category: Category): GlossaryTerm[]

Get all terms belonging to a specific category.

getTermsByCategory("defi");           // 135 terms
getTermsByCategory("core-protocol");  // 86 terms

getTermsByDepth(depth: Depth): GlossaryTerm[]

Get all terms at a specific depth level.

getTermsByDepth(1); // 110 surface-level terms
getTermsByDepth(5); // 56 bottom-level terms

getTermsByMaxDepth(maxDepth: Depth): GlossaryTerm[]

Get all terms at or below a given depth level. Useful for progressive disclosure.

getTermsByMaxDepth(2); // 382 terms (surface + shallow)
getTermsByMaxDepth(5); // all 1059 terms

getTermsByTag(tag: string): GlossaryTerm[]

Get all terms with a specific tag. Tags are cross-cutting concerns that span categories.

getTermsByTag("token-2022");   // all Token-2022 extension terms
getTermsByTag("vulnerability"); // all known attack vectors
getTermsByTag("jito");          // Jito ecosystem terms

getAllTags(): string[]

Returns all unique tags used across terms, sorted alphabetically.

getCategories(): Category[]

Returns all 14 category identifiers.

allTerms: GlossaryTerm[]

The complete array of all 1059 terms. Useful for building custom indexes or feeding to LLMs.

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Categories

Category	Terms	Description
core-protocol	96	Consensus, PoH, validators, slots, epochs
programming-model	82	Accounts, instructions, programs, PDAs
token-ecosystem	70	SPL tokens, Token-2022, metadata, NFTs
defi	144	AMMs, liquidity pools, lending protocols
zk-compression	37	ZK proofs, compressed accounts, Light Protocol
infrastructure	47	RPC, validators, staking, snapshots
security	56	Attack vectors, audit practices, reentrancy
dev-tools	64	Anchor, Solana CLI, explorers, testing
network	58	Mainnet, devnet, testnet, cluster config
blockchain-general	84	Shared blockchain concepts
web3	80	Wallets, dApps, signing, key management
programming-fundamentals	47	Data structures, serialization, Borsh
ai-ml	55	AI agents, inference on-chain, model integration
solana-ecosystem	139	Projects, protocols, and tooling

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i18n

The glossary ships with internationalization support. Translations override term and definition while keeping all structural fields (id, category, depth, related, aliases) in English.

import { getLocalizedTerms } from "@stbr/solana-glossary/i18n";

const ptTerms = getLocalizedTerms("pt"); // Portuguese
const esTerms = getLocalizedTerms("es"); // Spanish

Available locales: pt (Portuguese), es (Spanish)

Terms without a translation automatically fall back to English.

Translation file format

data/i18n/<locale>.json:

{
  "proof-of-history": {
    "term": "Prova de História (PoH)",
    "definition": "Um mecanismo de relogio que prova criptograficamente a passagem de tempo entre eventos..."
  }
}

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Term Schema

type Depth = 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5;

interface GlossaryTerm {
  id: string;          // URL-safe kebab-case identifier
  term: string;        // Display name
  definition: string;  // Plain-text definition (1-3 sentences)
  category: Category;  // One of 14 categories
  depth: Depth;        // Knowledge depth: 1 (surface) to 5 (bottom)
  related?: string[];  // Cross-reference IDs
  aliases?: string[];  // Abbreviations and alternate names
  tags?: string[];     // Cross-cutting concerns (e.g. "token-2022", "jito", "deprecated")
}

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Depth Levels

Each term has a depth rating indicating the knowledge level needed to understand it:

Depth	Label	Audience	Examples
1	surface	Anyone in crypto	wallet, NFT, SOL, transaction
2	shallow	Solana beginners	stake, validator, RPC, SPL token
3	deep	Intermediate devs	Sealevel, Gulf Stream, Turbine, Anchor
4	abyss	Advanced devs	PoH internals, BPF, CPI, PDAs
5	bottom	Core / researchers	runtime syscalls, ZK compression internals

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Use Cases

Feed context to LLMs

import { getTermsByCategory } from "@stbr/solana-glossary";

const context = getTermsByCategory("defi")
  .map(t => `${t.term}: ${t.definition}`)
  .join("\n");

// Add to your system prompt — no more wasting tokens explaining basics

Build a search index

import { allTerms } from "@stbr/solana-glossary";

// Feed into Algolia, MeiliSearch, or any search engine
const searchDocs = allTerms.map(t => ({
  objectID: t.id,
  title: t.term,
  content: t.definition,
  category: t.category,
  tags: t.aliases ?? [],
}));

Progressive onboarding

import { getTermsByMaxDepth } from "@stbr/solana-glossary";

// Show only beginner-friendly terms
const beginnerTerms = getTermsByMaxDepth(2);

// Unlock more as the user progresses
const intermediateTerms = getTermsByMaxDepth(3);

Onboarding tooltips

import { getTerm } from "@stbr/solana-glossary";

// In your UI component
const tooltip = getTerm("pda")?.definition;

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on adding terms, translations, and submitting PRs.

npm test        # Run tests
npm run build   # Build package
npm run lint    # Type check
npm run validate # Check data integrity

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License

MIT. See LICENSE.

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Built with care by Superteam Brazil.