Cast Vote

Cast a stake-weighted vote on an active governance proposal.

Description

Votes are allocated using basis points (bp) where 10,000 bp = 100% of the validator’s stake. You distribute your stake across three positions: For, Against, and Abstain — and the three values must add up to exactly 10,000.

The program verifies your stake weight on-chain by reading a MetaMerkleProof PDA and calling the NCN verify_merkle_proof instruction. You do not need to supply the proof manually — the CLI fetches it from the operator API.

Usage


svmgov cast-vote \
  --proposal-id "ABC123..." \
  --for-votes 7000 \
  --against-votes 2000 \
  --abstain-votes 1000 \
  --network mainnet

Arguments

Argument	Type	Required	Description
`--proposal-id`	String	Yes	Proposal PDA address (base58)
`--for-votes`	u64	Yes	Basis points allocated to For (0–10,000)
`--against-votes`	u64	Yes	Basis points allocated to Against (0–10,000)
`--abstain-votes`	u64	Yes	Basis points allocated to Abstain (0–10,000)
`--network`	String	No	Network override: `mainnet`, `testnet`
`--close-timestamp`	i64	No	Unix timestamp after which the `MetaMerkleProof` PDA can be closed permissionlessly. Defaults to the proposal’s vote-expiry time

Global Arguments

Option	Short	Description
`--keypair <PATH>`	`-k`	Path to validator identity keypair JSON
`--rpc-url <URL>`	`-r`	Custom RPC URL

Requirements

Proposal must be in voting phase (proposal.voting == true)
Current epoch must be within [start_epoch, end_epoch]
for_votes + against_votes + abstain_votes must equal exactly 10,000
NCN operators must have finalized the ConsensusResult for this proposal’s snapshot

Basis Points Reference

Basis Points	Percentage	Example (100 SOL stake)
`10,000`	100%	100 SOL
`7,000`	70%	70 SOL
`5,000`	50%	50 SOL
`1,000`	10%	10 SOL
`0`	0%	0 SOL

Examples


# 70% For, 20% Against, 10% Abstain
svmgov cast-vote \
  --proposal-id "AbCdEf..." \
  --for-votes 7000 \
  --against-votes 2000 \
  --abstain-votes 1000 \
  --network mainnet
 
# 100% For
svmgov cast-vote \
  --proposal-id "AbCdEf..." \
  --for-votes 10000 \
  --against-votes 0 \
  --abstain-votes 0 \
  --network mainnet
 
# 100% Against — explicit RPC
svmgov cast-vote \
  --proposal-id "AbCdEf..." \
  --for-votes 0 \
  --against-votes 10000 \
  --abstain-votes 0 \
  --network mainnet \
  --rpc-url https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com

What Happens On-Chain

CLI fetches your MetaMerkleProof from the operator API (/proof/vote_account/:vote_account)
CLI stores the proof in a temporary on-chain MetaMerkleProof PDA, setting its close_timestamp to the proposal’s vote-expiry time (or the --close-timestamp override) so the rent-bearing account can be reclaimed permissionlessly once voting ends
cast_vote instruction:
- Reads the MetaMerkleProof PDA
- CPIs to ncn-snapshot::verify_merkle_proof to confirm your stake weight
- If delegators have already overridden your vote via VoteOverrideCache, their portion is subtracted
- Records your Vote PDA with lamport amounts
proposal.for_votes_lamports / against_votes_lamports / abstain_votes_lamports are updated

If delegators have pre-submitted vote overrides before you vote, their stake is automatically subtracted from your effective vote weight when you call cast_vote.

You normally don’t need --close-timestamp. The CLI defaults it to the proposal’s vote-expiry time (the start of end_epoch), so the MetaMerkleProof PDA stays protected during voting and only becomes permissionlessly closeable afterward. Pass an explicit Unix timestamp only if you want different close semantics. The value is an estimate derived from the current epoch and slot timing.

Modify Vote — Change your vote during the voting phase
Finalize Proposal — Lock results after voting ends