# Getting started with Chat

Getting started with Ably Chat by choosing your language or framework.

You'll learn the essentials of building realtime chat applications, including how to create and manage chat rooms, send and edit messages, implement typing indicators, track user presence, retrieve message history, and send ephemeral reactions. You'll also discover how to use the Ably CLI for testing chat functionality and manage your chat applications through your Ably dashboard.

## Getting started guides

These are your first steps towards building a Chat application that can effortlessly scale to serve millions of users.

<Aside data-type='note'>
Using an AI coding assistant? [Teach it Ably](https://ably.com/docs/platform/ai-llms.md?source=llms.txt#agent-skills) with Agent Skills for all popular AI coding agents. Run `claude plugin add ably/agent-skills` or `npx skills add ably/agent-skills` to get started.
</Aside>

<Tiles>
{[
  {
    title: 'JavaScript',
    description: 'Start building with Chat using Ably\'s JavaScript SDK',
    image: 'icon-tech-javascript',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started javascript](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/javascript.md?source=llms.txt)',
  },
  {
    title: 'React',
    description: 'Start building Chat applications using Ably\'s React SDK.',
    image: 'icon-tech-react',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started react](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/react.md?source=llms.txt)',
  },
  {
    title: 'React Native',
    description: 'Start building Chat applications using Ably\'s React Native SDK.',
    image: 'icon-tech-reactnative',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started react-native](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/react-native.md?source=llms.txt)',
  },
  {
    title: 'Kotlin (Android)',
    description: 'Start building Chat applications for Android using Ably\'s Kotlin SDK.',
    image: 'icon-tech-kotlin',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started android](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/android.md?source=llms.txt)',
  },
  {
    title: 'Kotlin (JVM)',
    description: 'Start building Chat applications for JVM systems using Ably\'s Kotlin SDK.',
    image: 'icon-tech-kotlin',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started jvm](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/jvm.md?source=llms.txt)',
  },
  {
    title: 'Swift',
    description: 'Start building Chat applications using Ably\'s Swift SDK.',
    image: 'icon-tech-swift',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started swift](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/swift.md?source=llms.txt)',
  },
]}
</Tiles>

## React components

Getting started with pre-built React components that provide complete chat functionality out-of-the-box, allowing you to quickly integrate chat features into your applications.

<Tiles>
{[
  {
    title: 'React UI Kit',
    description: 'Start building Chat applications with Ably\'s React UI Kit',
    image: 'icon-tech-react',
    link: '[ably docs chat getting-started react-ui-kit](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/react-ui-kit.md?source=llms.txt)'
  },
]}
</Tiles>

## Related Topics

- [JavaScript](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/javascript.md?source=llms.txt): Get started with Ably's JavaScript Chat SDK. Build scalable, realtime chat applications using live chat APIs and realtime messaging.
- [React](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/react.md?source=llms.txt): A getting started guide for Ably Chat React that steps through some of the key features using React and Vite.
- [React Native](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/react-native.md?source=llms.txt): A getting started guide for Ably Chat React Native that steps through some of the key features using React Native.
- [Kotlin (Android)](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/android.md?source=llms.txt): A getting started guide for Ably Chat Android that steps through some of the key features using Jetpack Compose.
- [Kotlin (JVM)](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/jvm.md?source=llms.txt): A getting started guide for Ably Chat JVM that steps through some of the key features using Kotlin.
- [Swift](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/swift.md?source=llms.txt): A getting started guide for Ably Chat iOS that steps through some of the key features using SwiftUI with callback-based subscriptions.
- [Swift (AsyncSequence)](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/swift-async-sequence.md?source=llms.txt): A getting started guide for Ably Chat iOS that steps through some of the key features using SwiftUI with AsyncSequence for handling realtime events.
- [React UI Kit](https://ably.com/docs/chat/getting-started/react-ui-kit.md?source=llms.txt): Step-by-step quick-start for ably-chat-react-ui-kit using React and Vite.

## Documentation Index

To discover additional Ably documentation:

1. Fetch [llms.txt](https://ably.com/llms.txt?source=llms.txt) for the canonical list of available pages.
2. Identify relevant URLs from that index.
3. Fetch target pages as needed.

Avoid using assumed or outdated documentation paths.