Install LiveKit CLI
brew update && brew install livekit-cli
lk is LiveKit's suite of CLI utilities. It lets you conveniently access server APIs, create tokens, and generate test traffic all from your command line. For more details, refer to the docs in the livekit-cli GitHub repo.
Authenticate with Cloud (optional)
For LiveKit Cloud users, you can authenticate the CLI with your Cloud project to create an API key and secret. This allows you to use the CLI without manually providing credentials each time.
lk cloud auth
Then, follow instructions and log in from a browser.
Generate access token
A participant creating or joining a LiveKit room needs an access token to do so. For now, let’s generate one via CLI:
lk token create \--api-key <PROJECT_KEY> --api-secret <PROJECT_SECRET> \--join --room test_room --identity test_user \--valid-for 24h
Alternatively, you can generate tokens from your project's dashboard.
Test with LiveKit Meet
If you're testing a LiveKit Cloud instance, you can find your Project URL (it starts with wss://) in the project settings.
Use a sample app, LiveKit Meet, to preview your new LiveKit instance. Enter the token you previously generated in the "Custom" tab. Once connected, your microphone and camera will be streamed in realtime to your new LiveKit instance (and any other participant who connects to the same room)!
If interested, here's the full source for this example app.
Simulating another publisher
One way to test a multi-user session is by generating a second token (ensure --identity is unique), opening our example app in another browser tab and connecting to the same room.
Another way is to use the CLI as a simulated participant and publish a prerecorded video to the room. Here's how:
lk room join \--url <PROJECT_SECURE_WEBSOCKET_ADDRESS> \--api-key <PROJECT_API_KEY> --api-secret <PROJECT_SECRET_KEY> \--publish-demo --identity bot_user \my_first_room
This command publishes a looped demo video to my-first-room. Due to how the file was encoded, expect a short delay before your browser has sufficient data to render frames.