# Rooms messages subscribe
Use the `ably rooms messages subscribe` command to subscribe to messages in one or more Ably Chat rooms.
## Synopsis
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe [options]
```
## Arguments
### `room-names` **(Required)**
The names of the chat rooms to subscribe to.
## Options
### `--show-metadata`
Display metadata attached to messages. Defaults to `false`.
### `--duration | -D`
The duration in seconds to subscribe for before automatically unsubscribing.
### `--sequence-numbers`
Display sequence numbers for messages. Defaults to `false`.
### `--client-id`
A client ID to use for the subscription.
### `--json`
Output results as compact JSON. Mutually exclusive with `--pretty-json`.
### `--pretty-json`
Output results in formatted JSON. Mutually exclusive with `--json`.
### `--verbose | -v`
Enable verbose logging. Can be combined with `--json` or `--pretty-json`.
## Examples
Subscribe to messages in a single room:
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe my-room
```
Subscribe to messages in multiple rooms:
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe my-room another-room
```
Subscribe and show metadata:
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe my-room --show-metadata
```
Subscribe to room messages for a specific duration:
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe my-room --duration 30
```
Subscribe to room messages using an API key environment variable:
### Shell
```
ABLY_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY" ably rooms messages subscribe my-room
```
Subscribe to room messages in JSON format:
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe my-room --json
```
Subscribe to room messages in formatted JSON:
### Shell
```
ably rooms messages subscribe my-room --pretty-json
```
## See also
* [Rooms](https://ably.com/docs/cli/rooms.md) — Explore all `ably rooms` commands.
* [CLI reference](https://ably.com/docs/cli.md) — Full list of available commands.
## Related Topics
- [send](https://ably.com/docs/cli/rooms/messages/send.md): Send a message to an Ably Chat room using the CLI.
- [history](https://ably.com/docs/cli/rooms/messages/history.md): Get historical messages from an Ably Chat room using the CLI.
- [update](https://ably.com/docs/cli/rooms/messages/update.md): Update a message in an Ably Chat room using the CLI.
- [delete](https://ably.com/docs/cli/rooms/messages/delete.md): Delete a message in an Ably Chat room using the CLI.
## Documentation Index
To discover additional Ably documentation:
1. Fetch [llms.txt](https://ably.com/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.