Colosseum Codex: Star Frame, Codigo, Solana Bench
Star Frame, Codigo, Solana Bench, CDP Solana Transaction API, Darklake goes live
👋 Thanks for reading this week’s Codex!
Just a quick heads up that issues will go out on Friday instead of Thursday from now on.
This small shift lets me include more timely news and updates in each edition, so you get the most relevant stories from the Solana ecosystem right when you need them.
Here's what's featured in this week's issue:
- Star Atlas open sources Star Frame program framework
- Código: AI development platform for Solana launches
- Solana Bench benchmarks for testing AI’s operational competence on Solana
- Introducing the CDP Send Solana Transaction API
🌟 Star Frame
Star Frame is a new, high-performance framework developed by the Star Atlas team that introduces a trait-based architecture that emphasizes type safety, modularity, and efficient use of compute resources.
The framework addresses issues developers face when developing complex Solana programs by offering compile-time validation, reusable abstractions, and flexible components that can be adapted to a wide range of apps.
Star Frame is organized around three core principles:
- Modularity: Components are built as traits with default implementations that can be reused or extended as needed.
- Performance: Abstractions are designed to minimize overhead, using zero-copy data structures and near raw-memory efficiency.
- Safety: Compile-time checks reduce the likelihood of runtime errors, improving program reliability.
Star Frame introduces several notable new features.
Its unsized type system provides dynamic, zero-copy data structures such as resizable lists, maps, and sets, enabling applications to operate with near raw-memory efficiency.
The AccountSet lifecycle defines a three-stage process (Decode, Validate, and Cleanup) that standardizes account handling and improves correctness and security.
The framework’s trait-based abstraction offers reusable behaviors that developers can adapt or extend for specific program requirements.
Star Frame offers Solana developers another framework option to experiment with when building secure, scalable, and type-safe programs.
Open Sourcing Star Frame: Building the Next Generation of Solana Programs
🧙 Código AI Dev Platform
Código is an AI-powered cloud-native IDE built specifically for Solana. Unlike general-purpose coding assistants, it provides an end-to-end environment optimized for Solana’s runtime, helping developers move from idea to deployed program quickly.
The platform supports agentic AI code generation of Solana smart contracts, Solana-native autocomplete, integrated security checks, and one-click deployment.
A library of templates covers common use cases such as token vesting, staking, swaps, NFT marketplaces and staking, compressed NFTs, as well as DeFi and GameFi primitives including escrows, bonding curves, lending, and stake pools.
Código’s models are trained on more than 22.5 million lines of curated secure code and 130,000 task-specific instructions drawn from Solana programs.
This dataset allows the platform to reason in a way closer to an experienced Solana developer compared to general AI tools. Security is built in through static and pattern-based analysis methods trained on Solana audit data.
By combining Solana-specific training, integrated security, and a collaborative IDE, Código offers developers a specialized option for building faster and more reliably.
📊 Solana Bench
The Solana Foundation has introduced Solana Bench, a new open benchmark designed to measure operational competence, focusing on whether LLMs can compose valid transactions, handle accounts correctly, use SDKs properly, and recover from errors.
Two testing environments are included.
- Basic environment: Evaluates how many unique instructions a model can successfully execute using foundational SDKs such as @solana/web3.js and Anchor.
- Swap environment: Applies the same metric in a DeFi context with SDKs for protocols like Jupiter, Orca, Raydium, Phoenix, and Meteora. Each run is scored on unique executed instructions, with transactions tested in Surfpool, a sandbox validator that mirrors mainnet conditions.
Initial results show Claude Sonnet 4 leading in the Basic environment, while GPT-5 performs competitively in DeFi swaps once “memo instruction” exploits are filtered out.
These experiments highlight both the potential and the pitfalls of LLMs in Solana development, including their tendency to reward-hack metrics and their limited protocol coverage.
The Solana Foundation is also funding open-source research to extend Solana Bench. Grants are available for building protocol-specific environments, DevEx-focused benchmarks using IDLs, improved system prompts, and evaluations of custom Solana models.
Developers are encouraged to add SDK examples to documentation, since LLMs train on public code.
Introducing Solana Bench: How well can LLMs build complex transactions?
📨 CDP Send Solana Transaction API
Coinbase Developer Platform has introduced a new Send Solana Transaction API, designed to simplify how developers sign and broadcast transactions using CDP Server Wallets.
The API streamlines the process by handling blockhash management and fee estimation automatically, allowing developers to provide only the minimal required fields.
The API supports both legacy and versioned transaction formats. It also enables batching, where multiple instructions can be included within a single transaction.
Performance testing has shown the API can deliver sub-300 millisecond latency and achieve throughput of roughly 225 transactions per second. It also includes dynamic calculations for priority fees, adjusting automatically based on price and compute unit requirements.
Network support currently includes Solana mainnet and devnet. Developers are still responsible for ensuring that unsigned transactions are valid, but once submitted, the API handles the remaining steps.
Introducing the CDP Send Solana Transaction API
⚡ Quick Hits
Darklake privacy-first DEX to prevent MEV goes live - @darklakefi
How to test Solana Programs with Mollusk (video) - bri
Learn Pinocchio with Febo (video) - @b_migliaccio
Manually guided fuzzing hits Solana with Trident 0.11.0 - @TridentSolana
Indexing on Solana: A Complete Guide to Deposits, Withdrawals, Memos, and Security - Prapti Sharma
SuperteamNG Pitch Clinic now in one curated playlist (video) - @SuperteamNG
Some thoughts on SIMD-0341: v0 Account Compression - @L0STE_
Commonly used account constraints in Anchor programs - @yash_patel2003
Why does Fumarole streaming make development easier? - @triton_one
Reddit AMA with Roger Wattenhofer, Head Of Research At Anza - r/solana
First ever Solana Live - @solana
⚙️ Tools & Resources
star_frame is a high-performance, trait-based Solana program framework from Star Atlas for building fast, reliable, and type-safe programs.
codocma is a Codama renderer that generates Solana program documentation from IDLs in markdown or JSON.
pinocchio-airdrop-distributor is an optimized program for distributing airdrops using Merkle trees built with the Pinocchio for maximum efficiency in a no_std environment.
transaction_sender is a lightweight Golang tool that sends transactions to the current leader via QUIC & UDP, with proactive leader tracking to cut spam and reduce toxic order flow.
pinocchio-counter demonstrates how to build a Solana program using the Pinocchio framework by implementing a simple counter that can be incremented by authorized users and read by anyone.
instruction-introspection-anchor analyzes transactions onchain and scores security risks from 0-100 by detecting cross-program calls, token operations, and suspicious patterns.
💸 Funding
Vanish announced a $1M pre-seed round led by Colosseum, with participation from Solana Ventures, Pivot Global, and angels including Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko to build Solana’s private execution layer.
Trepa announced a $420K fundraise led by Colosseum, with participation from Balaji Srinivasan, Ignight Capital, and several angel investors to make precision in predictions both engaging and financially rewarding.
👩🔧 Get Hired
- Oro Labs is hiring a Software Engineer
- MagicBlock is hiring a Rust Engineer
- Phantom is hiring a Senior Rust Engineer
- Helium is hiring a Senior DevOps Engineer
📅 Event Calendar
Solana Summer House, Los Angeles, CA, Sept 5–7
Sol Summer House, at the Melrose Arts District in LA, is a 3-day immersive Web3 experience for degens, builders, and creators featuring live music, art, exclusive drops, activations, and high-energy Solana culture. Presented by Digital Spenders Club, Solana Foundation, and Solana Spaces.
Solana Oriental 2025, Seoul, South Korea, Sept 22
Co-hosted by Fragmetric & Solana Foundation, Solana Oriental 2025 is a full-afternoon event at the Mondrian Hotel in Itaewon, Seoul, bringing together leading teams, projects, key players, and passionate builders who are driving the next phase of the Solana ecosystem.
🎧 Listen to This
Validated
In this episode, team members from Temporal and Anza offer a unique perspective on Solana's evolution, contrasting practical building with core protocol development.
The conversation covers the real-world challenges of building on Solana, from physical infrastructure failures to the ever-present reality of MEV.
Temporal highlights how transparency tools have exposed sandwich attacks and slot-lagging, forcing the ecosystem to adapt.
Looking forward, they debate the path to a more robust market structure, discussing potential solutions like multiple concurrent leaders and increased compute power.
Prop AMMs, MEV, and the Realities of Solana's Roadmap w/ Temporal and Anza
Follow @mikehale on X or Warpcast!
Thanks for reading ✌️
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