Azure Communication Chat client library for JavaScript
Azure Communication Services for Chat lets developers add chat capabilities to their app. Use this client library to manage chat threads and their users, and send and receive chat messages.
Read more about Azure Communication Services here
Getting started
Prerequisites
Installing
npm install @azure/communication-chat
Key concepts
A chat conversation is represented by a thread. Each user in the thread is called a thread member. Thread members can chat with one another privately in a 1:1 chat or huddle up in a 1:N group chat. Users also get near-real time updates for when others are typing and when they have read the messages.
ChatClient
ChatClient
is the primary interface for developers using this client library. It provides asynchronous methods to create and delete a thread.
ChatThreadClient
ChatThreadClient
provides asynchronous methods to do the message and chat thread members operations within the chat thread.
Examples
Initialize ChatClient
Use resource url and user access token to initialize chat client.
import { ChatClient } from '@azure/communicationservices-chat';
import { AzureCommunicationUserCredential } from "@azure/communication-common";
let endpointUrl = '<ENDPOINT>';
let userAccessToken = '<USER_ACCESS_TOKEN>';
let userCredential = new AzureCommunicationUserCredential(userAccessToken);
let chatClient = new ChatClient(endpointUrl, userCredential);
Create a thread with two users
Use the createThread
method to create a chat thread.
createThreadRequest
is used to describe the thread request:
- Use
topic
to give a thread topic; - Use
members
to list the thread members to be added to the thread;
chatThreadClient
is the response returned from creating a thread, it contains an threadId
which is the unique ID of the thread.
let createThreadRequest =
{
topic: 'Preparation for London conference',
members:
[
{
user: { communicationUserId: '<USER_ID_FOR_JACK>' },
displayName: 'Jack'
},
{
user: { communicationUserId: '<USER_ID_FOR_GEETA>' },
displayName: 'Geeta'
}
]
};
let chatThreadClient= await chatClient.createChatThread(createThreadRequest);
let threadId = chatThreadClient.threadId;
Send a message to the thread
Use sendMessage
method to sends a message to a thread identified by threadId.
sendMessageRequest
is used to describe the message request:
- Use
content
to provide the chat message content;
sendMessageOptions
is used to describe the operation optional params:
- Use
priority
to specify the message priority level, such as 'Normal' or 'High' ; - Use
senderDisplayName
to specify the display name of the sender;
sendChatMessageResult
is the response returned from sending a message, it contains an ID, which is the unique ID of the message.
let sendMessageRequest =
{
content: 'Hello Geeta! Can you share the deck for the conference?'
};
let sendMessageOptions =
{
priority: 'Normal',
senderDisplayName : 'Jack'
};
let sendChatMessageResult = await chatThreadClient.sendMessage(sendMessageRequest, sendMessageOptions);
let messageId = sendChatMessageResult.id;
Receive messages from a thread
With real-time signaling, you can subscribe to listen for new incoming messages and update the current messages in memory accordingly.
await chatClient.startRealtimeNotifications();
chatClient.on("chatMessageReceived", (e) => {
console.log("Notification chatMessageReceived!");
});
Alternatively you can retrieve chat messages by polling the listMessages
method at specified intervals.
for await (const chatMessage of chatThreadClient.listMessages()) {
}
Add Users to a thread
Once a thread is created, you can then add and remove users from that thread. By adding users, you give them access to be able to send messages to the thread.
You will need to start by getting a new access token and identity for that user. The user will need that access token in order to initialize their chat client.
More information on tokens here: Authenticate to Azure Communication Services
let userTokenResponse = await myTokenFunction();
let addMembersRequest =
{
members: [
{
user: { communicationUserId: userTokenResponse.identity },
displayName: '<NAME>',
shareHistoryTime: '<TIME>'
}
]
};
await chatThreadClient.addMembers(addMembersRequest);
Remove Users from a thread
Similar to above, you can also remove users from a thread. In order to remove, you will need to track the IDs of the members you have added.
await chatThreadClient.removeMember({ communicationUserId: '<MEMBER_ID>' });
Troubleshooting
Next steps
In this quickstart you learned how to:
- Create a chat client
- Create a thread with 2 users
- Send a message to the thread
- Receive messages from a thread
- Remove Users from a thread
Contributing
If you'd like to contribute to this library, please read the contributing guide to learn more about how to build and test the code.