solana/docs/src/proposals/program-instruction-macro.md

# Program Instruction Macro

## Problem

Currently, inspecting an on-chain transaction requires depending on a
client-side, language-specific decoding library to parse the instruction. If
rpc methods could return decoded instruction details, these custom solutions
would be unnecessary.

We can deserialize instruction data using a program's Instruction enum, but
decoding the account-key list into human-readable identifiers requires manual
parsing. Our current Instruction enums have that account information, but only
in variant docs.

Similarly, we have instruction constructor functions that duplicate nearly all
the information in the enum, but we can't generate that constructor from the
enum definition because the list of account references is in code comments.

Also, Instruction docs can vary between implementations, as there is no
mechanism to ensure consistency.

## Proposed Solution

Move the data from code comments to attributes, such that the constructors
can be generated, and include all the documentation from the enum definition.

Here is an example of an Instruction enum using the new accounts format:

```rust,ignore
#[instructions(test_program::id())]
pub enum TestInstruction {
    /// Transfer lamports
    #[accounts(
        from_account(SIGNER, WRITABLE, desc = "Funding account"),
        to_account(WRITABLE, desc = "Recipient account"),
    )]
    Transfer {
        lamports: u64,
    },

    /// Provide M of N required signatures
    #[accounts(
        data_account(WRITABLE, desc = "Data account"),
        signers(SIGNER, multiple, desc = "Signer"),
    )]
    Multisig,

    /// Consumes a stored nonce, replacing it with a successor
    #[accounts(
        nonce_account(SIGNER, WRITABLE, desc = "Nonce account"),
        recent_blockhashes_sysvar(desc = "RecentBlockhashes sysvar"),
        nonce_authority(SIGNER, optional, desc = "Nonce authority"),
    )]
    AdvanceNonceAccount,
}
```

An example of the generated TestInstruction with docs:

```rust,ignore
pub enum TestInstruction {
    /// Transfer lamports
    ///
    /// * Accounts expected by this instruction:
    ///   0. `[WRITABLE, SIGNER]` Funding account
    ///   1. `[WRITABLE]` Recipient account
    Transfer {
        lamports: u64,
    },

    /// Provide M of N required signatures
    ///
    /// * Accounts expected by this instruction:
    ///   0. `[WRITABLE]` Data account
    ///   * (Multiple) `[SIGNER]` Signers
    Multisig,

    /// Consumes a stored nonce, replacing it with a successor
    ///
    /// * Accounts expected by this instruction:
    ///   0. `[WRITABLE, SIGNER]` Nonce account
    ///   1. `[]` RecentBlockhashes sysvar
    ///   2. (Optional) `[SIGNER]` Nonce authority
    AdvanceNonceAccount,
}
```

Generated constructors:

```rust,ignore
/// Transfer lamports
///
/// * `from_account` - `[WRITABLE, SIGNER]` Funding account
/// * `to_account` - `[WRITABLE]` Recipient account
pub fn transfer(from_account: Pubkey, to_account: Pubkey, lamports: u64) -> Instruction {
    let account_metas = vec![
        AccountMeta::new(from_pubkey, true),
        AccountMeta::new(to_pubkey, false),
    ];
    Instruction::new_with_bincode(
        test_program::id(),
        &SystemInstruction::Transfer { lamports },
        account_metas,
    )
}

/// Provide M of N required signatures
///
/// * `data_account` - `[WRITABLE]` Data account
/// * `signers` - (Multiple) `[SIGNER]` Signers
pub fn multisig(data_account: Pubkey, signers: &[Pubkey]) -> Instruction {
    let mut account_metas = vec![
        AccountMeta::new(nonce_pubkey, false),
    ];
    for pubkey in signers.iter() {
        account_metas.push(AccountMeta::new_readonly(pubkey, true));
    }

    Instruction::new_with_bincode(
        test_program::id(),
        &TestInstruction::Multisig,
        account_metas,
    )
}

/// Consumes a stored nonce, replacing it with a successor
///
/// * nonce_account - `[WRITABLE, SIGNER]` Nonce account
/// * recent_blockhashes_sysvar - `[]` RecentBlockhashes sysvar
/// * nonce_authority - (Optional) `[SIGNER]` Nonce authority
pub fn advance_nonce_account(
    nonce_account: Pubkey,
    recent_blockhashes_sysvar: Pubkey,
    nonce_authority: Option<Pubkey>,
) -> Instruction {
    let mut account_metas = vec![
        AccountMeta::new(nonce_account, false),
        AccountMeta::new_readonly(recent_blockhashes_sysvar, false),
    ];
    if let Some(pubkey) = authorized_pubkey {
        account_metas.push(AccountMeta::new_readonly*nonce_authority, true));
    }
    Instruction::new_with_bincode(
        test_program::id(),
        &TestInstruction::AdvanceNonceAccount,
        account_metas,
    )
}

```

Generated TestInstructionVerbose enum:

```rust,ignore
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, Debug, Clone, PartialEq)]
pub enum TestInstruction {
    /// Transfer lamports
    Transfer {
        /// Funding account
        funding_account: u8

        /// Recipient account
        recipient_account: u8

        lamports: u64,
    },

    /// Provide M of N required signatures
    Multisig {
        data_account: u8,
        signers: Vec<u8>,
    },

    /// Consumes a stored nonce, replacing it with a successor
    AdvanceNonceAccount {
        nonce_account: u8,
        recent_blockhashes_sysvar: u8,
        nonce_authority: Option<u8>,
    }
}

impl TestInstructionVerbose {
    pub fn from_instruction(instruction: TestInstruction, account_keys: Vec<u8>) -> Self {
        match instruction {
            TestInstruction::Transfer { lamports } => TestInstructionVerbose::Transfer {
                funding_account: account_keys[0],
                recipient_account: account_keys[1],
                lamports,
            }
            TestInstruction::Multisig => TestInstructionVerbose::Multisig {
                data_account: account_keys[0],
                signers: account_keys[1..],
            }
            TestInstruction::AdvanceNonceAccount => TestInstructionVerbose::AdvanceNonceAccount {
                nonce_account: account_keys[0],
                recent_blockhashes_sysvar: account_keys[1],
                nonce_authority: &account_keys.get(2),
            }
        }
    }
}

```

## Considerations

1. **Named fields** - Since the resulting Verbose enum constructs variants with
   named fields, any unnamed fields in the original Instruction variant will need
   to have names generated. As such, it would be considerably more straightforward
   if all Instruction enum fields are converted to named types, instead of unnamed
   tuples. This seems worth doing anyway, adding more precision to the variants and
   enabling real documentation (so developers don't have to do
   [this](https://github.com/solana-labs/solana/blob/3aab13a1679ba2b7846d9ba39b04a52f2017d3e0/sdk/src/system_instruction.rs#L140)
   This will cause a little churn in our current code base, but not a lot.
2. **Variable account lists** - This approach offers a couple options for
   variable account lists. First, optional accounts may be added and tagged with
   the `optional` keyword. However, currently only one optional account is
   supported per instruction. Additional data will need to be added to the
   instruction to support multiples, enabling identification of which accounts are
   present when some but not all are included. Second, accounts that share the same
   features may be added as a set, tagged with the `multiple` keyword. Like
   optional accounts, only one multiple account set is supported per instruction
   (and optional and multiple may not coexist). More complex instructions that
   cannot be accommodated by `optional` or `multiple`, requiring logic to figure
   out account order/representation, should probably be made into separate
   instructions.