What Is Slot in Solana?
A slot is a fixed time window (approximately 400 milliseconds) during which a designated leader validator can produce a block. Slots are numbered sequentially from the genesis block.
How slots work
Each slot is assigned to a leader validator based on the leader schedule. The leader receives transactions, orders them, and produces a block. If the leader fails to produce a block, the slot is skipped.
Slots vs blocks
Not every slot contains a block. A skipped slot means the leader did not produce a block in that time window. The skip rate measures how often this happens.
Slots in RPC
Many RPC methods accept a minContextSlot parameter to ensure the node has processed at least that slot before responding. The current slot is returned by getSlot.
Related terms
- Epoch — a collection of slots (approximately 2-3 days)
- Blockhash — the hash of the block produced in a slot
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