Anchor IDL CLI

A lightweight command-line tool for generating and converting Solana Anchor IDLs without requiring the full Anchor CLI installation.

Features

• Build IDLs from Solana Anchor programs
• Convert IDLs from legacy formats to the current specification
• Validate IDLs against the specification
• Display Instruction Details to understand program interfaces
• Standalone operation without requiring the full Anchor toolchain

Installation

cargo install --path .

Or install from crate.io:

cargo install dls-anchor

Usage

Building an IDL

# Basic usage (in the program directory)
dls-anchor build

# Specify program path and output file
dls-anchor build --path /path/to/my/program --output my_program_idl.json

# Skip linting and docs generation
dls-anchor build --skip-lint --no-docs

# Disable account resolution
dls-anchor build --no-resolution

# Generate a legacy format IDL (pre Anchor v0.30)
dls-anchor build --legacy

Converting an IDL

# Convert from a legacy format
dls-anchor convert --input legacy_idl.json --output converted_idl.json

Validating an IDL

# Validate an IDL against the specification
dls-anchor validate --input my_program_idl.json

Viewing Program Instructions

# Show detailed information about all instructions in the program
dls-anchor instructions --input my_program_idl.json

# Show only instruction names for a quick overview
dls-anchor instructions --input my_program_idl.json --names-only

Verbose Mode

Add the --verbose flag to any command for detailed logging:

dls-anchor --verbose build

Requirements

• Rust toolchain (with nightly support)
• Appropriate Solana program dependencies

How It Works

The CLI leverages the anchor-lang-idl crate, which is extracted from the Anchor framework. It provides:

1. IDL generation via program analysis
2. Legacy IDL format conversion
3. Validation against the specification
4. Human-readable instruction display

License

Apache License 2.0