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README.md

Stream Chat Flutter Sample App

A fully functional messenger built with stream_chat_flutter. The app lives inside this repository and consumes the SDK packages directly via Melos path overrides — making it the primary development playground for the SDK as well as the recommended reference when integrating Stream Chat into your own application.

Features

  • Channel and message lists
  • Threads and quoted replies
  • Message reactions
  • Image, video, and file attachments with media gallery
  • Message search
  • Pinned messages
  • Drafts
  • Message reminders
  • Static and live location sharing
  • Push notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging)
  • Offline storage (powered by stream_chat_persistence)
  • Light and dark themes
  • Localization
  • User authentication flow with selectable demo users

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Ensure Flutter is installed and configured on your machine. You also need Melos to bootstrap the monorepo:

dart pub global activate melos

Clone and Bootstrap

git clone https://github.com/GetStream/stream-chat-flutter.git
cd stream-chat-flutter
melos bootstrap

Run the App

cd sample_app
flutter run

The app connects to a demo Stream environment out of the box — no configuration required to get started. You can log in with any of the pre-configured demo users shown on the login screen.

Configuration

The default API key and demo user credentials live in lib/utils/app_config.dart. You can override the API key at runtime via the Advanced Options button on the login screen; the key is stored securely and used for subsequent sessions.

Targeting a different Stream app

To point the sample app at another backend — a staging environment, or your own Stream app — open Advanced Options on the login screen and fill in:

Field Notes
Chat API Key Prefilled with the app's configured key.
User ID / User Token A user on that app, with a token minted from its secret. The demo users on the login screen are signed for the demo app only.
Base URL Optional. HTTP base URL of the Stream API; the WebSocket URL is derived from it. Leave empty for the SDK's own endpoint.

Because these are entered at runtime, this works on an already-built deployment — including the hosted web demo.

Whenever a custom API key or base URL is in use, the channel list drops the stream_chat_flutter_sample_app predefined filter — a saved query that exists only on the demo app — and uses a plain "channels I am a member of" filter instead.

For local runs the same two settings have compile-time defaults:

flutter run \
  --dart-define=STREAM_API_KEY=your-api-key \
  --dart-define=STREAM_BASE_URL=https://chat-edge-us-east1-ce1.gcp.stream-io-api.com

Push Notifications

Push notifications require a Firebase project. Add your google-services.json (Android) and/or GoogleService-Info.plist (iOS) to the respective platform directories. See the push notifications guide for full setup instructions.

Supported Platforms

The app primarily targets Android and iOS. Web and macOS platform scaffolding is present in the repository but is not the focus of the sample app.