Client and User

Client Instance

You can create an instance with the new keyword or through the use of static method getInstance - the latter will create and store your instance and subsequent getInstance calls will return what has been stored.

import { Chat } from "stream-chat-react";
import { StreamChat } from "stream-chat";

const client = new StreamChat(apiKey);

// or

const client = StreamChat.getInstance(apiKey);

Connecting and Disconnecting a User

To authenticate a user you’ll need a token. Typically, you send this token from your backend to your frontend when the user logs in. See the Tokens & Authentication documentation to learn more about creating tokens. For our purposes here, we will assume you have created and retrieved a token.

To connect a user, call the connectUser method on your client instance with the user object and token provided as arguments. Connect the user directly after instantiating the client to establish a websocket connection with the Stream Chat API. Once the connection has been opened, your client instance will begin receiving events from the API.

const connectionPromise = client.connectUser(
  {
    id: "dave-matthews",
    name: "Dave Matthews",
  },
  token,
);

To dispose of the active connection (upon component cleanup, for example) you’d call disconnectUser method. It’s generally recommended to wait for the connection promise to resolve before disconnecting.

await connectionPromise;
client.disconnectUser();