What Is Processed in Solana?
Processed is the fastest and least-certain commitment level in Solana. A transaction at processed level has been included in a block by the leader, but the block has not yet been voted on by the rest of the cluster.
What processed means
When an RPC method returns data at processed commitment, it reflects the most recent block that the node has processed locally. This includes the current leader’s block, even before any validators have voted on it.
Risk of rollback
Processed data can be rolled back if the block is not confirmed by the cluster. This happens rarely but is possible during forks — if the cluster votes for a different fork, the processed block is discarded.
When to use processed
Use processed when speed matters more than certainty:
- Monitoring for new transactions in near-real-time
- Updating UI elements where temporary inconsistency is acceptable
- Polling for transaction status when you expect quick confirmation
Do not use processed for financial decisions or state-dependent logic where a rollback would cause errors.
FAQ
How fast is processed compared to confirmed? Processed data is available within ~400 ms (one slot). Confirmed takes approximately 6–12 seconds (supermajority vote). Finalized takes approximately 12–30 seconds.
Is processed the default commitment level?
No. Most RPC methods default to finalized. You must explicitly pass "commitment": "processed" to use it.
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