getSlot

getSlot is a Solana JSON-RPC method that returns the current slot the node is processing on the chain that secures SOL. Solana advances roughly one slot every ~400ms, so this u64 is the live cursor of network time. You can pass an optional config object with a commitment (processed, confirmed, or finalized) and minContextSlot to control which view you get. Send it as a JSON-RPC 2.0 POST with positional params to https://solana.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY.

Use cases

• Read the current slot as a cheap liveness probe — a slot that keeps advancing confirms the node is tracking the cluster.
• Anchor a scan or polling loop to the latest slot, then walk backward or forward through blocks from there.
• Capture this value and pass it as minContextSlot on later calls so they only run against a node that is at least this caught up.

Parameters

Response

Example request

1curl https://solana.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6  "id": 1,
7  "method": "getSlot",
8  "params": [
9    {}
10  ]
11}'

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• A slot is not the same as block height: Solana skips slots that produce no block, so the slot number is always greater than or equal to block height. Use getBlockHeight when you need the count of actual blocks.
• The result depends on commitment: processed advances fastest but is least settled and can be rolled back, while finalized is the most settled. Choose the level that matches your tolerance.

Supported networks

• Mainnet
• Devnet

See also

• getBlockHeight
• getSlotLeader
• getEpochInfo