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This quickstart guide will get you up and running with Ably Pub/Sub. You’ll establish a realtime connection to Ably and learn to publish and subscribe to messages.

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Prerequisites

  1. Sign up for an Ably account.
  2. Create a new app, and create your first API key in the API Keys tab of the dashboard.
  3. Your API key will need the publish and subscribe capabilities.

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Step 1: Install the SDK

Install the Ably SDK for your platform: 
npm install ably

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Step 2: Connect to Ably

Create a realtime client instance using your API key: 
import Ably from 'ably';

const realtime = new Ably.Realtime('YOUR_API_KEY');

await realtime.connection.once('connected');
console.log('Connected to Ably!');

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Step 3: Get a channel

Channels are used to organize messages into different topics: 
const channel = realtime.channels.get('my-channel');

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Step 4: Subscribe to messages

Subscribe to receive messages published to the channel: 
await channel.subscribe((message) => {
  console.log('Received:', message.data);
});

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Step 5: Publish a message

Publish a message to the channel: 
await channel.publish('greeting', 'Hello, World!');

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Complete example

Here’s a complete working example: 
import Ably from 'ably';

const realtime = new Ably.Realtime('YOUR_API_KEY');

await realtime.connection.once('connected');
console.log('Connected to Ably!');

const channel = realtime.channels.get('my-channel');

await channel.subscribe((message) => {
  console.log('Received:', message.data);
});

await channel.publish('greeting', 'Hello, World!');

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Next steps

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