Get started - Get started with Liveblocks, Slate, Yjs, and React

Liveblocks is a real-time collaboration infrastructure for building performant collaborative experiences. Follow the following steps to start adding collaboration to your React application using the APIs from the @liveblocks/yjs package.

Quickstart

  1. Install Liveblocks, Yjs, and Slate

    $npm install @liveblocks/client @liveblocks/react @liveblocks/yjs yjs slate slate-react @slate-yjs/core

  2. Initialize the liveblocks.config.ts file

    $npx create-liveblocks-app@latest --init --framework react

  3. Set up the Liveblocks client

    The first step in connecting to Liveblocks is creating a client which will be responsible for communicating with the back end. You can do this by modifying createClient in your config file, and passing your public API key.

    liveblocks.config.ts
    const client = createClient({  publicApiKey: "",});

  4. Join a Liveblocks room

    Liveblocks uses the concept of rooms, separate virtual spaces where people collaborate. To create a real-time experience, multiple users must be connected to the same room.

    index.tsx
    "use client";
    import { RoomProvider } from "./liveblocks.config";import { CollaborativeEditor } from "./CollaborativeEditor";import { ClientSideSuspense } from "@liveblocks/react";
    export default function Page() {  return (    <RoomProvider id="my-room" initialPresence={{}}>      <ClientSideSuspense fallback="Loading…">        {() => <CollaborativeEditor />}      </ClientSideSuspense>    </RoomProvider>  );}

  5. Set up the collaborative Slate text editor

    Now that we set up Liveblocks, we can start integrating Slate and Yjs in the CollaborativeEditor.tsx file. To make the editor collaborative, we can rely on withYjs from @slate-yjs/core.

    Editor.tsx
    "use client";
    import LiveblocksProvider from "@liveblocks/yjs";import { useEffect, useMemo, useState } from "react";import { createEditor, Editor, Transforms } from "slate";import { Editable, Slate, withReact } from "slate-react";import { withYjs, YjsEditor } from "@slate-yjs/core";import * as Y from "yjs";import { useRoom } from "../liveblocks.config";import styles from "./CollaborativeEditor.module.css";
    export function CollaborativeEditor() {  const room = useRoom();  const [connected, setConnected] = useState(false);  const [sharedType, setSharedType] = useState<Y.XmlText>();  const [provider, setProvider] = useState<LiveblocksProviderType>();
      // Set up Liveblocks Yjs provider  useEffect(() => {    const yDoc = new Y.Doc();    const yProvider = new LiveblocksProvider(room, yDoc);    const sharedDoc = yDoc.get("slate", Y.XmlText) as Y.XmlText;    yProvider.on("sync", setConnected);
        setSharedType(sharedDoc);    setProvider(yProvider);
        return () => {      yDoc?.destroy();      yProvider?.off("sync", setConnected);      yProvider?.destroy();    };  }, [room]);
      if (!connected || !sharedType || !provider) {    return <div>Loading…</div>;  }
      return <SlateEditor sharedType={sharedType} />;}
    const emptyNode = {  children: [{ text: "" }],};
    function SlateEditor({ sharedType }: { sharedType: Y.XmlText }) {  const editor = useMemo(() => {    const e = withReact(withYjs(createEditor(), sharedType));
        // Ensure editor always has at least 1 valid child    const { normalizeNode } = e;    e.normalizeNode = (entry) => {      const [node] = entry;
          if (!Editor.isEditor(node) || node.children.length > 0) {        return normalizeNode(entry);      }
          Transforms.insertNodes(editor, emptyNode, { at: [0] });    };
        return e;  }, []);
      useEffect(() => {    YjsEditor.connect(editor);    return () => YjsEditor.disconnect(editor);  }, [editor]);
      return (    <div className={styles.container}>      <div className={styles.editorContainer}>        <Slate editor={editor} initialValue={[emptyNode]}>          <Editable className={styles.editor} placeholder="Start typing here…" />        </Slate>      </div>    </div>  );}

    And here is the Editor.module.css file to make sure your multiplayer text editor looks nice and tidy.

  6. Next: set up authentication

    By default, Liveblocks is configured to work without an authentication endpoint. This approach is great for prototyping and marketing pages where defining your own security isn’t always required. If you want to implement your own security logic to define if certain users should have access to a given room, you’ll need to implement an authentication endpoint.

    Set up authentication

What to read next

Congratulations! You now have set up the foundation for your collaborative Slate text editor inside your React application.

Examples using Slate