CLI Setup

Install the LiveKit CLI and test your setup using an example frontend application.

On this page

Install LiveKit CLIAuthenticate with Cloud (optional)Generate access tokenTest with LiveKit MeetSimulating another publisher

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.

tip

If you're looking to explore LiveKit's Agents framework, or want to prototype your app against a prebuilt frontend or token server, check out Sandboxes.

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

tip

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.

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