Querying Channels

LAST EDIT Nov 06 2024

If you’re building a similar application to Facebook Messenger or Intercom, you’ll want to show a list of Channels. The Chat API supports MongoDB style queries to make this easy to implement.

You can query channels based on built-in fields as well as any custom field you add to channels. You can find the complete list of supported operators in the query syntax section of the docs.

Multiple filters can be combined, but more complex filters can increase the latency of this API, particularly with custom fields. Reach out to support if you have any doubts about your query filter or logic.

As an example, let's say that you want to query the last conversations I participated in sorted by last_message_at.

Stream Chat does not run MongoDB on the backend, only a subset of the query options are available.

Here’s an example of how you can query the list of channels:

Query Parameters

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nametypedescriptiondefaultoptional
filtersobjectThe query filters to use. You can query on any of the custom fields you've defined on the Channel. You can also filter other built-in channel fields, see next section for reference.{}
sortobject or array of objectsThe sorting used for the channels matching the filters. Sorting is based on field and direction, multiple sorting options can be provided. You can sort based on last_updated, last_message_at, updated_at, created_at, member_count, unread_count or has_unread(unread status). Direction can be ascending (1) or descending (-1)[{last_updated: -1}]
optionsobjectQuery options. See below.{}
Some languages does not guarantee field order in objects or maps. That's why using array of single key objects is necessary
By default when query channels does not have any filter and it will match all channels on your application. While this might be OK during development, you most likely want to have at least some basic filtering.
At a minimum, the filter should include members: { $in: [userID] } .

The query channels endpoint will only return channels that the user can read, you should make sure that the query uses a filter that includes such logic. For example: messaging channels are readable only to their members, such requirement can be included in the query filter (see below).

Common filters by use-case

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Messaging and Team

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On messaging and team applications you normally have users added to channels as a member. A good starting point is to use this filter to show the channels the user is participating.

Support

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On a support chat, you probably want to attach additional information to channels such as the support agent handling the case and other information regarding the status of the support case (ie. open, pending, solved).

Channel Queryable Built-In Fields

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To learn more about the supported query operators themselves, please see: Query Syntax Operators.

The following channel fields can be used to filter your query results.

Name

Type

Description

Supported Operators

EXAMPLE

frozen

boolean

channel frozen status

$eq

false

type

string or list of string

the type of channel

$in, $eq

messaging

id

string or list of string

the ID of the channel

$in, $eq

general

cid

string or list of string

the full channel ID

$in, $eq

messaging:general

members

string or list of string

the list of user IDs of the channel members

$in, $eq

marcelo or [thierry, marcelo]

invite

string, must be one of these values: (pending, accepted, rejected)

the status of the invite

$eq

pending

joined

boolean

whether current user is joined the channel or not (through invite or directly)

$eq

true

muted

boolean

whether the current user has muted the channel

$eq

true

member.user.name

string

the 'name' property of a user who is a member of the channel

$autocomplete, $eq

marc

created_by_id

string

the id of the user that created the channel

$eq

marcelo

hidden

boolean

whether the current user has hidden the channel

$eq

false

last_message_at

string, must be formatted as an RFC3339 timestamp

the time of the last message in the channel

$eq, $gt, $lt, $gte, $lte, $exists

2021-01-15T09:30:20.45Z

member_count

integer

the number of members in the channel

$eq, $gt, $lt, $gte, $lte

5

created_at

string, must be formatted as an RFC3339 timestamp

the time the channel was created

$eq, $gt, $lt, $gte, $lte $exists

2021-01-15T09:30:20.45Z

updated_at

string, must be formatted as an RFC3339 timestamp

the time the channel was updated

$eq, $gt, $lt, $gte, $lte

2021-01-15T09:30:20.45Z

team

string

the team associated with the channel

$eq

stream

last_updated

string, must be formatted as an RFC3339 timestamp

the time of the last message in the channel. If the channel has no messages, then the time the channel was created

$eq, $gt, $lt, $gte, $lte

2021-01-15T09:30:20.45Z

Disabled

boolean

Whether the channel is disabled or not.

$eq

false

has_unread

boolean

Retrieve channels where the user has an unread message. Only "true" is supported, up to 100 channels

true

true

Querying by the channel Identifier should be done using the cid field as far as possible to optimize API performance. As the full channel ID, cidis indexed everywhere in Stream database where id is not.

Query Options

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nametypedescriptiondefaultoptional
statebooleanif true returns the Channel statetrue
watchbooleanif true listen to changes to this Channel in real time.true
limitintegerThe number of channels to return (max is 30)10
offsetintegerThe offset (max is 1000)0
message_limitintegerHow many messages should be included to each channel (Max 300)25
member_limitintegerHow many members should be included for each channel (Max 100)100

Query channels allows you to retrieve channels and start watching them at same time using the watch parameter set to true.

Response

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The result of querying a channel is a list of ChannelState objects which include all the required information to render them without any additional API call.

ChannelState Response

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Field Name

Description

channel

The data for this channel

messages

The most recent messages for this channel (see message_limit option)

watcher_count

How many users are currently watching the channel

read

The read state for all members of the channel

members

The list of members, up to 100 ordered by the most recent added

pinned_messages

Up to 10 most recent pinned messages

Pagination

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Query channel requests can be paginated similar to how you paginate on other calls. Here's a short example:

It is important to note that your filter should include, at the very least {members: {$in: [userID]} or pagination could break.