Programmable Chat Quickstart: Javascript
Programmable Chat has been deprecated and is no longer supported. Instead, we'll be focusing on the next generation of chat: Twilio Conversations. Find out more about the EOL process here.
If you're starting a new project, please visit the Conversations Docs to begin. If you've already built on Programmable Chat, please visit our Migration Guide to learn about how to switch.
In this guide, we will get you up and running quickly with a sample chat application you can build on as you learn more about Programmable Chat. Sound like a plan? Then let's get cracking!
Gather account information
The first thing we need to do is grab all the necessary information from our Twilio account. To set up our back-end for Chat, we will need four values from our account:
| Config Values | Description |
|---|---|
| Service Instance SID | A service instance where all the data for our application is stored and scoped. Generate one in the console here. |
| Account SID | Your primary Twilio account identifier - find this in the console here. |
| API Key | Used to authenticate - generate one here. |
| API Secret | Used to authenticate - just like the above, you'll get one here. |
Download, configure, and run the starter app
Choose a download package for your server-side language of choice. If you're primarily a front-end developer and don't have a strong preference, Node.js will probably get you up and running the fastest.
- Download for C# .NET
- Download for Java
- Download for Node.js
- Download for PHP
- Download for Python
- Download for Ruby
Follow the instructions in the README for each starter application to configure and run it on your machine, using the four values we created above:
- Instructions for C# .NET
- Instructions for Java
- Instructions for Node.js
- Instructions for PHP
- Instructions for Python
- Instructions for Ruby
Explore the starter app
This is where the fun begins! When you visit the homepage of the starter application, verify that everything looks good with your settings, and then click the green chat button at the bottom.
You have been assigned a random user identity and have
joined a channel called general. If you open this page in another
browser window or tab, you should be able to have a rousing conversation with
yourself!
The HTML and CSS in the starter application aren't terribly interesting, but the JavaScript code driving this application has a few very important jobs:
- Fetch an
AccessTokenfrom the server via Ajax - Initialize the Chat JavaScript SDK
- Join a channel called "general"
- Handle UI events to send messages or display new incoming messages
We explore how to manage your users in our user identity guide, how to generate an access token, and cover everything you can do with a channel object in the channels and messages guide.
Get Help
Need some extra help? Send us a note at help@twilio.com, and we'll make sure to get you running just as quick as we can. Have fun building with Chat, and make sure to let us know what you're building!
Need some help?
We all do sometimes; code is hard. Get help now from our support team, or lean on the wisdom of the crowd by visiting Twilio's Stack Overflow Collective or browsing the Twilio tag on Stack Overflow.
