SDK Overview
Twilio provides a client-side SDK for browser-based development, as well as SDKs for native development on iOS and Android.
Our SDKs provide a convenient collection of objects, methods, and events to connect your client-side application to Conversations.
For the most up-to-date installation methods, version history, and documentation, please check out:
- The JavaScript, Android, or iOS download page
- The JavaScript, Android, or iOS changelogs
- The JavaScript, Android, or iOS auto-generated documentation
Initialization
Initializing the Conversations SDKs is an important step to ensure your client is ready to use on an end user's mobile or web device.
To get started, you’ll need to initialize a new Client object. You’ll need to pass a valid Access Token to the client creation method as the first parameter.
After that, you should listen for the client to inform you when it’s fully initialized/synchronized.
Once you receive this confirmation, the client is ready to use!
Token Events
If the token expires before you renew it, the client’s connection state will change to disconnected, and you’ll need to initialize a new client object.
All tokens have a limited lifetime to protect you from abuse. The maximum and default lifetime is 24 hours, but you should make it as short as possible for your application. Therefore, you may need to renew the token during your SDK session. The SDK will notify you when the token is "about to expire" and when it "has expired".
To avoid needing to instantiate a new client, you should get a new token from your server and pass it to the client’s updateToken method before the old one expires. This method will update the authentication token for your client and re-register with the Conversations services.
Client Connection State
There is a reconnection attempt period when the network connectivity is lost before the client switches to the disconnected state.
During use, the connection state of your SDK client may change.
These are the possible client connection states:
connecting- client is offline a and connection attempt is in progressconnected- client is online and readydisconnecting- client is going offline as disconnection is in progressdisconnected- client is offline and no connection attempt is in progressdenied- client connection is denied because of an invalid JSON Web Token access token. User must refresh token in order to proceed
The above-mentioned states are also documented in our SDK reference docs.
The client state changes are due to different factors. For instance, let’s take the disconnected state as an example. This could happen due to a network disruption, expired token, or other error. You can listen to the client’s connection state events to detect this and respond accordingly.
Enable Debugging
As you build out your Conversations application, you might find it helpful to check the Twilio Console debugger. This service aggregates all additional errors or warnings that may be triggered from Twilio’s webhooks to your server, as well as token errors.
You can also enable debug logging by passing an option for increased log verbosity to your client when you create it. Check the auto-generated docs or Error Handling and Diagnostics for platform-specific examples.
What's Next?
Congratulations! 🎉 You have now learned how to configure your Conversations SDK client! As a following step, you can:
- Learn how to Handle Events in our next guide, or
- Check out our Working with Conversations guide
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.
