Create users

createUser() creates a new user (User object) with a unique User ID.

Requires App Context

To store data about users, you must enable App Context for your app's keyset in the Admin Portal.

Method signature

Under the hood

This method takes the following parameters:

chat.createUser(
    id: string,
    {
        name?: string,
        externalId?: string,
        profileUrl?: string,
        email?: string,
        custom?: ObjectCustom,
        status?: string,
        type?: string
    }
): Promise<User>

Input

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
id	string	Yes	n/a	Unique user identifier.
name	string	No	n/a	Display name for the user (must not be empty or consist only of whitespace characters).
externalId	string	No	n/a	User's identifier in an external system. You can use it to match id with a similar identifier from an external database.
profileUrl	string	No	n/a	URL of the user's profile picture.
email	string	No	n/a	User's email address.
custom	ObjectCustom	No	n/a	JSON providing custom data about the user. Values must be scalar only; arrays or objects are not supported. Filtering App Context data through the custom property is not recommended in SDKs.
status	string	No	n/a	Tag that lets you categorize your app users by their current state. The tag choice is entirely up to you and depends on your use case. For example, you can use status to mark users in your chat app as invited, active, or archived.
type	string	No	n/a	Tag that lets you categorize your app users by their functional roles. The tag choice is entirely up to you and depends on your use case. For example, you can use type to group users by their roles in your app, such as moderator, player, or support-agent.

API limits

To learn about the maximum length of parameters used to set user metadata, refer to REST API docs.

Output

Type	Description
Promise<User>	Returned object containing the new user data.

Errors

If you try to create a user without providing their ID, you will receive the ID is required error. If you try to create a user that already exists, you will receive the User with this ID already exists error.

Basic usage

Create a user with an ID of support_agent_15. Specify their name, avatar, and custom attributes, such as their title and the LinkedIn profile URL.

// reference the "chat" object and invoke the "createUser()" method
const user = await chat.createUser(
    "support_agent_15",
    {
        name: "John Smith",
        profileUrl: "https://randomuser.me/api/portraits/men/1.jpg",
        custom: {
            title: "VP Marketing",
            linkedInUrl: "https://www.linkedin.com/mkelly_vp"
        }
    }
)