Creating an AppInstance for Amazon Chime SDK messaging

To use Amazon Chime SDK messaging, you must first create an Amazon Chime SDK AppInstance in your AWS account.

Building an AppInstance

To create an AppInstance for messaging

1. In the CLI, run aws chime-sdk-identity create-app-instance --name NameOfAppInstance.

2. In the create response, make note of the AppInstanceArn. arn:aws:chime:region: aws_account_id:app-instance/app_instance_id.

Creating an AppInstanceUser

Once you create an AppInstance, you create an AppInstanceUser in that AppInstance. You typically do this when a user first registers or logs in to your app. You can also create an AppInstanceUser that acts on behalf of your back-end services.

The following example shows how to create a back-end AppInstanceUser:

aws chime-sdk-identity create-app-instance-user \
    --app-instance-arn "app_instance_arn" \
    --app-instance-user-id "back-end-worker" \
    --name "back-end-worker"

In the create response, note the AppInstanceUserArn. It takes this form: arn:aws:chime:region: aws_account_id:app-instance/app_instance_id/user/app_instance_user_id. In this example, app_instance_user_id is "back-end-worker."

Note

As a best practice, when creating an AppInstanceUser for a client application, have the AppInstanceUserId match an existing unique ID for that user, such as the sub of an identity provider. The name is an optional placeholder that is attached to some API entities, such as a message sender. It allows you to control the display name of a user in one place, rather then needing to look it up from AppInstanceUser ARN, which is also attached as the sender of a message.