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This application demonstrates a multi-party video application built withTwilio's Programmable Video JS SDK,Twilio's Conversations JS SDK, andCreate React App.

• Deploy toTwilio Serverless in just a few minutes
• No other infrastructure is required
• No code changes are required before your first deploy
• There is no cost associated with deploying the app
• Standard usage charges apply for Twilio Video when using the app for video calls. The chat feature is built using the Conversations API and is free-of-cost up to 200 monthly active users,standard usage charges apply thereafter.

You must have the following installed:

• Node.js v20+
• NPM v10+ (comes installed with newer Node versions)

You can check which versions of Node.js and NPM you currently have installed with the following commands:

node --versionnpm --version

Clone this repository and cd into the project directory:

git clone https://github.com/twilio/twilio-video-app-react.gitcd twilio-video-app-react

Runnpm install inside the main project folder to install all dependencies from NPM.

If you want to useyarn to install dependencies, first run theyarn import command. This will ensure that yarn installs the package versions that are specified inpackage-lock.json.

Twilio Video has partnered withKrisp Technologies Inc. to addnoise cancellation to the local audio track. This feature is licensed under theKrisp Plugin for Twilio. In order to add this feature to your application, please runnpm run noisecancellation:krisp immediately after theprevious step.

The app is deployed to Twilio using the Twilio CLI. You caninstall the Twilio CLI using Homebrew on a Mac or npm.

To install twilio-cli using npm, run the following command:

npm install -g twilio-cli

Note: If you run into permissions errors when installing the twilio-cli globally with thenpm install -g command, you might need to change the permissions of your globalnode_modules directory or configure npm to use a different directory for globally installed npm packages. Seethis StackOverflow thread, which has more information about both options. Thiscode sample in GitHub is also a helpful guide for how to install npm packages globally without needing to change directory permissions and without sudo.

Login to the Twilio CLI. You will be prompted for your Account SID and Auth Token, both of which you can find on the dashboard of yourTwilio console.

twilio login

Note: If you installed the Twilio CLI using npm and you receive an error that thetwilio command is not found, you might need to update your Node install prefix. Seethis StackOverflow thread for more information.

This app requires an additional plugin. Install the CLI plugin with:

twilio plugins:install @twilio-labs/plugin-rtc

Note: If you have previously installed the@twilio-labs/plugin-rtc plugin, please make sure that you are using the most recent version. You can upgrade the plugin by runningtwilio plugins:update. The chat feature requires version 0.8.1 or greater of@twilio-labs/plugin-rtc.

Before deploying the app, make sure you are using the correct account on the Twilio CLI (using the commandtwilio profiles:list to check).The app is deployed to Twilio with a single command:

npm run deploy:twilio-cli

This performs the following steps:

• Builds the React app in thesrc directory
• Generates a random code used to access the Video app
• Deploys the React app and token server function as a Twilio Serverless service.
• Prints the URL for the app and the passcode.

NOTE: The Twilio Function that provides access tokens via a passcode shouldNOT be used in a production environment. This token server supports seamlessly getting started with the collaboration app, and while convenient, the passcode is not secure enough for production environments. You should use an authentication provider to securely provide access tokens to your client applications. You can find more information about Programmable Video access tokensin this tutorial.As a precaution, the passcode will expire after one week. To generate a new passcode, redeploy the app:

npm run deploy:twilio-cli -- --override

View the URL and passcode for the Video app with

 twilio rtc:apps:video:view

Delete the app with

twilio rtc:apps:video:delete

This removes the Serverless app from Twilio. This will ensure that no further cost are incurred by the app.

If any errors occur after running aTwilio CLI RTC Plugin command, then try the following steps.

1. Runtwilio plugins:update to update the rtc plugin to the latest version.
2. Runtwilio rtc:apps:video:delete to delete any existing video apps.
3. Runnpm run deploy:twilio-cli to deploy a new video app.

The Video app has the following features:

• Video calling with real-time video and audio
• Chat support for textual and file-based messaging
• Enable/disable camera
• Mute/unmute mic
• Screen sharing
• Dominant speaker indicator
• Network quality indicator
• Defines participant bandwidth usage with theBandwidth Profile API
• Start and stop recording with theRecording Rules API
• Virtual backgrounds withVideo Processor library

See browser support table fortwilio-video.js SDK.

This application requires an access token to connect to a Room for Video and a Conversation for Chat. The included local tokenserver provides the application with access tokens. This token server can be used to run the app locally, and it is the server that is used when this app is run in development mode withnpm start. Perform the following steps to setup the local token server:

• Create an account in theTwilio Console.
• Click on 'Settings' and take note of your Account SID.
• Create a new API Key in theAPI Keys Section under Programmable Video Tools in the Twilio Console. Take note of the SID and Secret of the new API key.
• Create a new Conversations service in theServices section under the Conversations tab in the Twilio Console. Take note of the SID generated.
• Store your Account SID, API Key SID, API Key Secret, and Conversations Service SID in a new file called.env in the root level of the application (example below).

TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=ACxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTWILIO_API_KEY_SID=SKxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTWILIO_API_KEY_SECRET=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTWILIO_CONVERSATIONS_SERVICE_SID=ISxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Now the local token server (seeserver/index.ts) can dispense Access Tokens to connect to a Room and a Conversation. See.env.example for information on additional environment variables that can be used.

Note: the use of Twilio Conversations is optional. If you wish to opt out, simply run or build this app with theREACT_APP_DISABLE_TWILIO_CONVERSATIONS environment variable set totrue.

Run the app locally with

npm start

This will start the local token server and run the app in the development mode. Openhttp://localhost:3000 to see the application in the browser.

The page will reload if you make changes to the source code insrc/.You will also see any linting errors in the console. Start the token server locally with

npm run server

The token server runs on port 8081 and expects aPOST request at the/token route with the following JSON parameters:

{  "user_identity": string, // the user's identity  "room_name": string, // the room name}

The response will be a token that can be used to connect to a room. The server provided with this application uses the same endpoints as theplugin-rtc Twilio CLI plugin that is used to deploy the app. For more detailed information on the server endpoints, please see theplugin-rtc README.

If you want to see how the application behaves with multiple participants, you can simply openlocalhost:3000 in multiple tabs in your browser and connect to the same room using different user names.

Additionally, if you would like to invite other participants to a room, each participant would need to have their own installation of this application and use the same room name and Account SID (the API Key and Secret can be different).

Build the React app with

npm run build

This script will build the static assets for the application in thebuild/ directory.

This application has unit tests (usingJest) and end-to-end tests (usingCypress). You can run the tests with the following scripts.

Run unit tests with

npm test

This will run all unit tests with Jest and output the results to the console.

Run end to end tests with

npm run cypress:open

This will open the Cypress test runner. When it's open, select a test file to run.

Note: Be sure to complete the 'Getting Started' section before running these tests. These Cypress tests will connect to real Twilio rooms and real Twilio conversations, so you may be billed for any time that is used.

The state of this application (with a few exceptions) is managed by theroom object that is supplied by the SDK. Theroom object contains all information about the room that the user is connected to. The class hierarchy of theroom object can be viewedhere.

One great way to learn about the room object is to explore it in the browser console. When you are connected to a room, the application will expose the room object as a window variable:window.twilioRoom.

Since the Twilio Video SDK manages theroom object state, it can be used as the source of truth. It isn't necessary to use a tool like Redux to track the room state. Theroom object and most child properties areevent emitters, which means that we can subscribe to these events to update React components as the room state changes.

React hooks can be used to subscribe to events and trigger component re-renders. This application frequently uses theuseState anduseEffect hooks to subscribe to changes in room state. Here is a simple example:

import{useEffect,useState}from'react';exportdefaultfunctionuseDominantSpeaker(room){const[dominantSpeaker,setDominantSpeaker]=useState(room.dominantSpeaker);useEffect(()=>{room.on('dominantSpeakerChanged',setDominantSpeaker);return()=>{room.off('dominantSpeakerChanged',setDominantSpeaker);};},[room]);returndominantSpeaker;}

In this hook, theuseEffect hook is used to subscribe to thedominantSpeakerChanged event emitted by theroom object. When this event is emitted, thesetDominantSpeaker function is called which will update thedominantSpeaker variable and trigger a re-render of any components that are consuming this hook.

For more information on how React hooks can be used with the Twilio Video SDK, see this tutorial:https://www.twilio.com/blog/video-chat-react-hooks. To see all of the hooks used by this application, look in thesrc/hooks directory.

TheVideoProvider component contains much of the logic that relates to connecting to video rooms and acquiring local input devices. The VideoProvider component exposes many properties and methods to the rest of the application through theuseVideoContext hook. Similarly, theChatProvider contains logic that relates to connecting to a Twilio Conversation, and it exposes properties and methods through theuseChatContext hook.

Theconnect function from the SDK accepts aconfiguration object. The configuration object for this application can be found insrc/utils/useConnectionOptions/useConnectionOptions.ts. In this object, we 1) enable dominant speaker detection, 2) enable the network quality API, and 3) supply various options to configure thebandwidth profile.

This application dynamically changes the priority of remote video tracks to provide an optimal collaboration experience. Any video track that will be displayed in the main video area will havetrack.setPriority('high') called on it (see theVideoTrack component) when the component is mounted. This higher priority enables the track to be rendered at a high resolution.track.setPriority(null) is called when the component is unmounted so that the track's priority is set to its publish priority (low).

This application can be configured to authenticate users before they use the app. Once users have signed into the app with their Google credentials, their Firebase ID Token will be included in the Authorization header of the HTTP request that is used to obtain an access token. The Firebase ID Token can then beverified by the server that dispenses access tokens for connecting to a room.

See.env.example for an explanation of the environment variables that must be set to enable Google authentication.

• Twilio Video Android App
• Twilio Video iOS App
• Twilio CLI RTC Plugin

See theLICENSE file for details.