Fork a Program

Overview

bake fork <programId>

bake fork clones a real on-chain program (and optionally its accounts) from any source cluster into a fresh solana-test-validator, so you can rehearse changes against real state for free.

Usage

# Clone from Cookie Chain (default)
bake fork 56Vj61zFW4hHV6wdjnisrHtVwWDqyjixjpBgnoRJvzxL

# Clone from Solana mainnet
bake fork <programId> --source mainnet

# Clone from custom RPC
bake fork <programId> --source https://my-rpc.example.com

# Include accounts
bake fork <programId> --fetch-program-accounts

# Specific accounts only
bake fork <programId> --accounts <addr1> <addr2>

Source resolution

Pre-flight validation

Before spawning the validator, bake:

1. Resolves and validates the source RPC (sends getGenesisHash)
2. Optionally calls getProgramAccounts (opt-in via --fetch-program-accounts)
3. Prints a summary of what will be cloned
4. Spawns the validator in the foreground

Foreground execution

The validator runs as a foreground process with live-streamed output. It stays alive until you press Ctrl+C.

Port handling

Defaults to port 8899. If the port is in use:

bake fork <programId> --port 8900

Known constraints

getProgramAccounts rate limiting

Free public Solana RPCs commonly reject or rate-limit getProgramAccounts calls. When this happens, bake prints a warning and falls back to cloning only the bare program.

Fix: Use a paid RPC provider via --source <url>, or omit --fetch-program-accounts and list specific accounts via --accounts.

WSL2 resource exhaustion

Repeated rapid bake fork invocations can exhaust WSL2 memory/CPU resources. Mitigation: fully stop one fork's validator (Ctrl+C) before starting another.

If WSL crashes, run wsl --shutdown from PowerShell, wait, then restart.