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Quickstart

Updated

Build a basic voice calling, video calling, or streaming app with the Agora RTC SDK.

This page provides a step-by-step guide on how to create a basic real-time app using the Agora RTC SDK. The same steps apply whether you're building voice calling, video calling, interactive live streaming, or broadcast streaming — only a few configuration values change based on your use case.

Understand the tech

To start a real-time session, implement the following steps in your app:

  • Initialize the engine: Before calling other APIs, create and initialize an engine instance.

  • Join a channel: Call methods to create and join a channel.

    • Join as a host: A live streaming event has one or more hosts. A host publishes audio and video to the channel and can also subscribe to streams from other hosts.

    • Join as audience: Audience members can only subscribe to streams published by hosts.

    Note

    For the voice calling and video calling use cases, each user joins as a host.

  • Send and receive audio and video: Hosts publish streams to the channel. Audience members subscribe to audio and video streams published by hosts.

  • For streaming applications, set the latency level based on your use case:

    • Interactive live streaming: Optimized for real-time interaction with ultra-low latency. Use this when hosts and audience need to interact quickly, such as in live Q&A sessions, interactive classrooms, or auctions.

    • Broadcast streaming: Optimized for scalability with slightly higher latency. Use this for large-scale events where one-way broadcasting is sufficient, such as concerts, sports events, or news broadcasts.

React SDK and Web SDK relationship

The React SDK is built on Web SDK 4.x and includes its APIs. For example, useLocalMicrophoneTrack calls the Web SDK createMicrophoneAudioTrack method.

Use the React SDK for basic real-time audio and video features. For advanced or complex scenarios, use the Web SDK. When a feature requires the Web SDK, the React SDK documentation links to the relevant Web SDK API pages.

Prerequisites

Set up your project

Create a project

To create a new ReactJS project with the necessary dependencies:

  1. Ensure that you have installed Node.js LTS and npm.

  2. Open a terminal and execute:

    npm create vite@latest agora-sdk-quickstart -- --template react-ts

    This creates a new project folder named agora-sdk-quickstart. Open the folder in your preferred IDE.

Install the SDK

Use one of the following methods to install the project dependencies:

Navigate to the project folder and run the following command to install the RTC SDK:

npm i agora-rtc-react

To integrate React JS dependencies and the Agora SDK using CDN, add the following code to your HTML file:

<!-- Include the React development libraries (must be introduced in this order) -->
<script crossorigin src="https://unpkg.com/react@18/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script crossorigin src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@18/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>

<!-- If the above React libraries have already been integrated through npm, skip them and include only the Agora RTC React SDK -->
<script src="https://download.agora.io/sdk/release/agora-rtc-react.2.3.0.js"></script>

Implement Realtime Communication

This section guides you through the implementation of basic real-time audio and video interaction in your app.

This guide includes complete sample code that demonstrates implementing basic real-time interaction. To understand the core API calls in the sample code, review the following implementation steps.

Import Agora hooks and components

To use RTC SDK in your component, include the following imports:

import {
  LocalUser, // Plays the microphone audio track and the camera video track
  RemoteUser, // Plays the remote user audio and video tracks
  useIsConnected, // Returns whether the SDK is connected to Agora's server
  useJoin, // Automatically join and leave a channel on mount and unmount
  useLocalMicrophoneTrack, // Create a local microphone audio track
  useLocalCameraTrack, // Create a local camera video track
  usePublish, // Publish the local tracks
  useRemoteUsers, // Retrieve the list of remote users
} from "agora-rtc-react";
import AgoraRTC, { AgoraRTCProvider } from "agora-rtc-react";
import { useState } from "react";

Initialize the client

Use the createClient method provided by the SDK to create a client object for the <AgoraRTCProvider /> component. Wrap the <Basics /> component with <AgoraRTCProvider /> to enable state management and access operation-related hooks.

Set the channel profile, client role, and audience latency level according to your use case.

Use caseChannel profileClient roleLatency level
Voice calling"rtc"—2: Ultra low latency (default)
Video calling"rtc"—2: Ultra low latency (default)
Interactive live streaming"live""host" or "audience"2: Ultra low latency (default)
Broadcast streaming"live""host" or "audience"1: Low latency

Note

  • Only hosts can publish media. Audience members cannot publish until promoted to host.
  • Choose rtc mode for calls where every user publishes, typically fewer than 17 participants. Choose live mode for larger events with separate hosts and audience.
  • The latency level only applies to the audience role, and affects your pricing tier.

The following example shows a live-streaming audience configuration. Adjust the mode, role, and latency values according to your use case.

export const RealtimeCommunication = () => {
  // Example: interactive live streaming as an audience member
  const client = AgoraRTC.createClient({ mode: "live", codec: "vp8" });

  client.setClientRole("audience", { level: 2 });

  // For voice or video calling:
  // use mode: "rtc" and do not set a client role

  // For broadcast streaming:
  // client.setClientRole("audience", { level: 1 });

  // To join as a host:
  // client.setClientRole("host");

  return (
    <AgoraRTCProvider client={client}>
      <Basics />
    </AgoraRTCProvider>
  );
};

Join a channel

To join a channel, use the useJoin hook. You can specify the following joinOptions:

  • App ID: appid identifies the project you created in Agora Console.

  • Channel name: The name of the channel to join. Clients that pass the same channel name join the same channel. If a channel with the specified name does not exist, it is created when the first user joins.

  • Authentication token: A token is a dynamic key that authenticates a user when the client joins a channel. In a production environment, you obtain a token from a token server in your security infrastructure. For the purpose of this guide Generate a temporary token.

  • User ID: uid is a 32-bit signed integer that identifies a user in the channel. You can specify a unique user ID for each user yourself. If you do not set a user ID or set it to 0 when joining a channel, the SDK generates a random number for the user ID and returns the value.

Add the following to Basics:

const [appId, setAppId] = useState("<-- Insert App ID -->");
const [channel, setChannel] = useState("<-- Insert Channel Name -->");
const [token, setToken] = useState("<-- Insert Token -->");
const [calling, setCalling] = useState(false);

useJoin({appid: appId, channel: channel, token: token ? token : null}, calling);

Create local audio and video tracks

To create local audio and video tracks, use the useLocalMicrophoneTrack and useLocalCameraTrack hooks. Add the following to Basics:

const { localMicrophoneTrack } = useLocalMicrophoneTrack(micOn);
const { localCameraTrack } = useLocalCameraTrack(cameraOn);

Publish tracks in the channel

After joining a channel, publish the local audio and video tracks using the usePublish hook. Add the following to Basics:

const [micOn, setMic] = useState(true);
const [cameraOn, setCamera] = useState(true);
const { localMicrophoneTrack } = useLocalMicrophoneTrack(micOn);
const { localCameraTrack } = useLocalCameraTrack(cameraOn);

usePublish([localMicrophoneTrack, localCameraTrack]);

Display the local video

To display the local video, use the LocalUser hook, which provides properties to manage local audio and video tracks. Assign the local video track to videoTrack and the audio track to audioTrack. Use the micOn and cameraOn parameters to toggle audio and video. Include the following code in the markup of your Basics component:

<LocalUser
  audioTrack={localMicrophoneTrack}
  cameraOn={cameraOn}
  micOn={micOn}
  videoTrack={localCameraTrack}
  style={{width: '50%', height: 300 }}
>

Display remote video

To manage and display the list of remote users connected to a channel, use the useRemoteUsers hook. To show each user's video, pass the user object to the RemoteUser component along with the required properties. Follow these steps to implement the logic:

  1. Retrieve the list of remote users

    Use the useRemoteUsers hook to get the current list of remote users:

    const remoteUsers = useRemoteUsers();

  2. Render the remoteUser component

    Loop through the remoteUsers list and nest the RemoteUser component where you want to display each user's video. Include the following code in the markup of your Basics component:

    {remoteUsers.map((user) => (
  <div key={user.uid}>
    <RemoteUser user={user} style={{ width: '50%', height: 300 }}>
      <samp>{user.uid}</samp>
    </RemoteUser>
  </div>
))}

Leave the channel

To leave a channel, destroy the component, close the browser window, or refresh the browser tab. The useJoin hook automatically handles the destruction of the React component.

Complete sample code

A complete code sample demonstrating the basic process of real-time interaction is provided for your reference. To use the complete sample, add the following to your src/App.tsx file.

Test the sample code

Use CodeSandbox, to swiftly run the complete demo code and experience the RTC SDK functionality in just a few simple steps.

To run the demo code in CodeSandbox:

  1. Fill in the app ID and the temporary token you obtained from Agora Console. Use the same channel name you used to generate the token.
  2. Click the Join Channel button. You see yourself in the video.
  3. Ask a friend to open the same demo link in their browser and join the channel using the same app ID, channel name, and temporary token as yours. After successfully joining the channel, you can see and hear each other.
  4. Click the microphone and camera buttons at the bottom to switch on, or turn off the corresponding devices.
  5. Click the hang-up button to end the call.

To experiment and learn more, modify the code directly in the editor on the left, and preview the runtime effect on the right.

Note

If CodeSandbox access is slow, try adjusting your network configuration.

Reference

This section contains content that completes the information on this page, or points you to documentation that explains other aspects of this product.

  • If a firewall is deployed in your network environment, refer to Connect with Cloud Proxy to use Agora services normally.

Next steps

After implementing the quickstart sample, read the following documents to learn more:

  • To ensure communication security in a test or production environment, best practice is to obtain and use a token from an authentication server. For details, see Secure authentication with tokens.

Sample project

Agora provides an open source sample project on GitHub for your reference. The project demonstrates the use of each component and hook provided by the React SDK, as well as some advanced functions.

API reference

See also

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