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stream-unity

Build, integrate, and answer how-to questions for Stream Chat and Stream Video in Unity Engine games and apps. Use for Unity / C# / MonoBehaviour project work - the Chat .unitypackage and the Video UPM package, StreamChatClient / StreamVideoClient wiring, ConnectUserAsync and tokens, channels and messages, calls and participant tracks, camera and microphone devices, building the UI yourself on UGUI or UI Toolkit, IL2CPP, and Android / iOS / desktop / WebGL player settings. Triggers on unity, unity engine, unity 6, unity 2022, monobehaviour, .unitypackage, Packages/manifest.json, asmdef, il2cpp, ugui, rawimage, audiosource, webcamtexture, StreamChatClient, IStreamChatClient, IStreamChannel, StreamVideoClient, IStreamVideoClient, IStreamCall, StreamVideoTrack, in-game chat, unity video call. Chat and Video only - there is no Stream Feeds SDK for Unity.

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Stream Unity - docs orchestrator for Unity Engine

Chat and Video. There is no Stream Feeds SDK for Unity (/activity-feeds/docs/unity and https://getstream.io/cli/docs/activity-feeds-unity.md both 404). If the user asks for activity feeds in Unity, say so up front and offer the alternatives (the REST/server API driven from your backend, or a platform SDK on a companion app) rather than inventing an API.

These are two separate SDKs, and almost nothing is shared. Different repos, different install mechanisms, different maturity, different supported platforms, different docs quality. There is no combined client, no shared AuthCredentials type (StreamChat.Libs.Auth.AuthCredentials and StreamVideo.Libs.Auth.AuthCredentials are distinct types in distinct assemblies), and connecting a user to one does not connect them to the other. Treat "add chat to my Unity call app" as two integrations that happen to share an API key.

ChatVideo
RepoGetStream/stream-chat-unity (default branch develop)GetStream/stream-video-unity (default branch main)
Latestv5.7.0 (stable, 5.x line)0.11.0 (pre-1.0 - the surface still moves)
Install.unitypackage from GitHub Releases, imported into Assets/UPM package from a git URL
Entry pointStreamChatClient.CreateDefaultClient() -> IStreamChatClientStreamVideoClient.CreateDefaultClient() -> IStreamVideoClient
NamespaceStreamChat.CoreStreamVideo.Core
PlatformsEverything Unity targets, WebGL includedAndroid (ARM64), iOS, Windows x64, macOS, Linux. No WebGL, no UWP
Pre-built UINone - a sample project, not componentsNone - a sample project, not components
Docs coverageGood: nearly every page carries real Unity C#Thin: 22 pages; several shipped capabilities have no page at all

Neither SDK ships reusable UI. Both ship a sample project you import and read, not a component library you drop in. Every chat bubble, channel row, participant tile, and call button in the user's game is code you write. Say this before promising a screen, and run ui.md when building one.

This skill orchestrates: it gates the request against product, platform, and feature support, routes to the exact docs page, fetches it live, and applies it - while carrying the Unity-specific knowledge the docs do not have (the client's hidden DontDestroyOnLoad runner, the track-binding requirement, IL2CPP stripping, and the player settings that decide whether a build works on device at all).

Rules (read once per session): RULES.md - non-negotiable rules + Unity pitfalls. Read before writing any code.


Step 0: Three gates, before any code

Resolve all three from the user's words plus a read-only probe. Each one can turn "here is the code" into "that is not possible", so none is optional and none belongs in a runtime failure later.

Gate 1: product (and whether it exists for Unity)

AskAnswer
Chat / messaging / in-game text chatSupported. Chat SDK.
Video calls / audio calls / audio rooms / livestream broadcastSupported. Video SDK.
BothTwo installs, two clients, two connect calls. Do not try to unify them.
Activity feeds / timelines / follow graphNo Unity SDK. State it immediately; offer the server API path.
Moderation review queue / dashboard UINot an app surface. Moderation review happens in the Stream Dashboard; the SDKs expose only end-user actions (flag, mute, ban).

Gate 2: Unity version and build target (the Video SDK is the constraint)

Probe rather than ask:

bash -c 'echo "=== UNITY VERSION ==="; cat ProjectSettings/ProjectVersion.txt 2>/dev/null; \
echo "=== UPM MANIFEST ==="; cat Packages/manifest.json 2>/dev/null; \
echo "=== STREAM CHAT PRESENT ==="; find . -maxdepth 5 -type d -name "StreamChat" -not -path "*/Library/*" 2>/dev/null; \
echo "=== STREAM VIDEO PRESENT ==="; grep -n "io.getstream.video" Packages/manifest.json 2>/dev/null; \
echo "=== SCRIPTING BACKEND / TARGET ==="; grep -nE "scriptingBackend|AndroidTargetArchitectures|apiCompatibilityLevel|managedStrippingLevel" ProjectSettings/ProjectSettings.asset 2>/dev/null | head -20'
SituationWhat to do
Unity 6 / 2023.1 / 2022.3 / 2021.3 / 2020.3Both SDKs supported.
Unity 2019.4 - 2020.2, Chat onlyChat supports it (the SDK advertises 2019.x). Video does not - its package declares "unity": "2020.3" and its WebRTC fork the same.
Unity 2019.x - 2020.2, Video requestedHard stop for Video. Say it immediately: upgrade the editor, or ship Chat only.
Target is WebGL, Video requestedHard stop. Unity's WebRTC package does not support WebGL, so neither does the Video SDK. Chat does work on WebGL. Offer: Chat on WebGL plus a browser-based Video client, or drop WebGL.
Target is Android, Video requestedARM64 only. ARMv7 is unsupported and must be disabled. See platforms.md.
Target is UWPVideo unsupported.
Target is a consoleChat only, and treat it as unverified - the SDK claims console support but publishes no per-console guidance.

Unity 6 plus Chat carries one hard version floor: Chat v5.4.0 fixed an IL2CPP build crash on Unity 6000.0.x (a KeyNotFoundException in IL2CPP's vtable builder). Never pin Chat below v5.4.0 on Unity 6.

Gate 3: feature support (say no in the plan, not in a compile error)

Chat - not implemented client-side as of v5.7.0. If the request needs one of these, say so before writing code:

  • Guest and anonymous users (ConnectGuestUser / anonymous connect do not exist) - this blocks the usual read-only-spectator livestream pattern
  • Channel archiving, channel pinning (both are per-member fields with no client API)
  • Draft messages, message reminders and bookmarks, location sharing
  • User blocking (BlockUser / UnblockUser / blocked-user list)
  • On-demand message translation (auto-translation on a channel does work)
  • Setting invisible or a custom status at connect time (MarkInvisibleAsync after connect works)
  • Unread-mentions-per-channel count; pagination of reactions, watchers, and pinned messages via their dedicated endpoints
  • Client-level standalone file upload (channel-level UploadFileAsync / UploadImageAsync work)
  • Poll answers (text comments) and querying poll votes

Video - not implemented client-side as of 0.11.0:

  • Publishing your own screen share. You can receive a remote participant's ScreenShareTrack; there is no API to start sharing from Unity. The repo README's feature list says "Screensharing" and means the receive half.
  • Any incoming-call / ringing event. call.ring is handled internally and never surfaced (the source literally reads //StreamTodo: expose CallRinging event?). ring: true and AcceptAsync / RejectAsync exist, but the callee has no client-side signal that a call arrived - you need your own push handling.
  • Push device registration. CreateDeviceAsync exists only on an internal API and the low-level client is only reachable through an internal interface. Register devices from your backend.
  • A public calling-state machine. CallingState is internal; use client.CallStarted / CallLeaving / CallEnded plus client.ActiveCall.
  • Video-side chat integration, deeplinking, picture-in-picture, noise cancellation, transcription control, and HLS/RTMP viewer UI have no Unity docs page. GoLiveAsync / StopLiveAsync / StartHLS / StopHLS / StartRecordingAsync / StopRecordingAsync do ship on IStreamCall - they are undocumented, not absent. Read the interface (rung 2 below) and say where you got it.

Anything server-side stays server-side for both SDKs: call types, channel types, permissions and roles, webhooks, push templates and providers, recording/transcription config, data retention, imports. The client never holds the API secret.


The docs convention - and the per-product coverage reality

Every Stream docs page has a Markdown twin: take the page URL, drop the trailing /, add .md.

https://getstream.io/chat/docs/unity/query-channels/   ->   https://getstream.io/chat/docs/unity/query-channels.md
https://getstream.io/video/docs/unity/basics/quickstart/ -> https://getstream.io/video/docs/unity/basics/quickstart.md

Always fetch the .md variant - clean Markdown, verbatim code, no page chrome. Live indexes that list every page:

ProductLive index
Chathttps://getstream.io/cli/docs/chat-unity.md
Videohttps://getstream.io/cli/docs/video-unity.md

The two trees fail in opposite directions, so the caveat is different per product.

Chat: the code is real, but not every C# block is Unity C#

The Chat Unity tree is well maintained. Roughly 40 of its 53 pages carry a genuine Unity code tab, and where a feature is missing the page usually says so outright:

// This feature is not yet available in the Unity SDK.

The one trap is the fence label, and it is easy to miss because both say C#. These pages mix two different SDKs:

FenceWhich SDKUse it?
```csharp label="Unity"The Unity client SDKYes. Copy verbatim.
```csharp label="C#"The .NET server-side SDK (using GetStream;, new StreamClient(apiKey, apiSecret), chat.SendMessageAsync(...))No. It needs the API secret and cannot run in a shipped game.

label="C#" snippets are IStreamChannel-shaped only by coincidence: chat.SendMessageAsync("channel-type", "channel-id", request) looks close enough to channel.SendNewMessageAsync(request) to paste by mistake, and then the fix is "add the API secret to the client", which is exactly wrong. Pages that are entirely server-side C# (archiving-channels, pinning-channels, location-sharing) document features the Unity SDK does not have at all - see Gate 3. Pages that are mixed (send-message, query-channels, channel-members, moderation, message-delivery-and-read-status) do have a Unity path; take the label="Unity" block and ignore the rest.

message-delivery-and-read-status is the sharpest case: read state is fully implemented (channel.MarkChannelReadAsync, channel.Read, channel.MarkChannelAsUnreadAsync, message.MarkMessageAsLastReadAsync) and the page carries no Unity block at all. Get the API from the interface, not from the page's server-side C#.

Two more Chat-tree facts worth knowing before you fetch:

  • The CLI index is incomplete. 15 more paths resolve under /chat/docs/unity/ - but they 301-redirect to platform or Node docs (push-devices -> /docs/platform/push-devices/, chat-permission-policies -> /chat/docs/node/..., update-users -> /docs/platform/users/) and their /chat/docs/unity/<page>.md twins 404. Fetch the .md at the redirect target instead, and expect no Unity code there. docs-map.md lists them with their real URLs.
  • The sample-project link in the docs is broken. The introduction page links github.com/GetStream/stream-chat-unity/tree/main/...; the repo has no main branch. Use develop (or a version tag).

Video: the code is trustworthy, the tree is just small

All 22 Video Unity pages are Unity-first C# - there is no server-SDK mixing and no JavaScript. The problem is absence: no page covers going live, backstage, HLS, RTMP, recording control, ringing flows, or screen-share receive, even though most of those ship on IStreamCall. When a Video request has no page, that is normal - go to rung 2 and read the interface.

Source-of-truth ladder

Walk it in order. Stop at the first rung that answers the question, and cite which rung you used.

RungSourceUse for
1The page's label="Unity" block (Chat) or the page's C# (Video) - docs-map.md says which pages have oneAnything covered. Copy verbatim.
2SDK source in the project - Assets/.../StreamChat/Core/** and Library/PackageCache/io.getstream.video*/Runtime/Core/**, else raw.githubusercontent.com/GetStream/<repo>/<tag>/...Exact signatures, defaults, nullability, what is public vs internal. The final authority.
3Shipped docs code samples - Chat: Assets/Plugins/StreamChat/Samples/*.cs; Video: Packages/StreamVideo/DocsCodeSamples/**Compiling versions of the snippets behind the docs pages. Often clearer than the page.
4Sample projects - Chat: Assets/Plugins/StreamChat/SampleProject/; Video: Packages/StreamVideo/Samples~/VideoChat/Real end-to-end wiring, including message-list pooling and participant-view spawning.
5Changelogs - Chat: Assets/Plugins/StreamChat/Changelog.txt; Video: CHANGELOG.mdBehaviour and config that never reached the docs (see RULES.md). Richer than the release notes.

Read from the version the project actually vendors - Chat is copied into Assets/, Video is resolved into Library/PackageCache/, so both are already on disk. Prefer them over GitHub develop/main.

URL grounding: only fetch a page URL you got from docs-map.md or from a live index fetch in this conversation. Do not invent doc paths from memory.


Step 1: Classify the request

With the gates passed, pick the mode:

  • How-to / reference ("how do I query channels?", "what does SetIncomingVideoEnabled do?") -> go straight to Docs lookup. No setup, no credentials.
  • Integrate ("add chat to my game", "put a video call in this project") -> run setup.md, then Docs lookup per feature.
  • New project ("build me a Unity chat app") -> setup.md then Docs lookup, scoped to the requested screens. If there is no Unity project (no ProjectSettings/ProjectVersion.txt), tell the user to create it in Unity Hub first - do not try to synthesize a Unity project tree by hand.
  • UI work ("show a channel list", "render the participants", "style the message bubbles", "add call controls") -> run ui.md. Neither SDK ships components, so this is code you write; the runbook carries the prefab/pooling patterns, the track-binding contract, and the self-preview path that has no track.
  • Build / ship / run on device ("build for Android", "why is there no video on my phone?", "IL2CPP build crashes", "package for iOS") -> run platforms.md. The player settings there are load-bearing, not polish: without them an Android Video build has no working WebRTC, an iOS build never gets camera permission, and an IL2CPP build can strip the SDK's serialization types.
  • Upgrade / migrate a version ("bump Chat to 5.7", "we're on 4.x") -> Chat 4.x -> 5.x is the enum-to-struct migration; read migration-guide-to-5x.md from docs-map.md. For Video, there is no migration guide - read CHANGELOG.md between the two versions and say plainly that a pre-1.0 SDK can break API between minors.

Step 2: Docs lookup (every request ends here)

  1. Open docs-map.md. Find the row for the feature; it gives the exact .md URL and what kind of code that page carries.
  2. If the feature is not in the map, fetch the live index for the product and pick from it.
  3. Fetch the .md page(s) with WebFetch. At most 3 per request; beyond that, hand the user the index URL.
  4. Use the Unity code verbatim, adapting only to the project's MonoBehaviour and scene shape. If the page has no Unity block, drop to rung 2 and read the interface.
  5. Cite what you used: Source: [Title](https://getstream.io/...), or Source: Assets/Plugins/StreamChat/Core/StatefulModels/IStreamChannel.cs for a source read. Never answer SDK specifics from training data - if you did not read it this conversation, read it now or say you could not find it.
  6. Apply best practices - one QueryChannelsAsync then let the WebSocket keep state fresh; subscribe video only for participants actually on screen; connect once. See RULES.md "Mindful API usage".

What this skill carries

The official docs cover the low-level clients well where they have Unity code, so this skill does not restate them. The curated, non-doc content is:

FileWhat it is
RULES.mdNon-negotiable rules + the Unity pitfalls that fail silently. Every rule is stated once, here.
setup.mdVersion-pinned install for both SDKs (.unitypackage and UPM manifest), CLI credentials, and the verified minimal client wiring with correct lifecycle.
ui.mdBuilding the UI yourself - there are no components. Chat lists and composer on UGUI, participant views, the track-binding contract, self-preview, and subscription management.
platforms.mdPer-target player settings, IL2CPP and managed stripping, the Newtonsoft conflict, WebGL, Android/iOS/desktop, and what push does and does not do.
docs-map.mdIntent -> exact docs page for both products, annotated with what kind of code each page carries, plus the source fallback.

Support

If the user asks for support or how to contact someone, direct them to getstream.io/contact. SDK gaps and feature requests go to the repo issues: Chat, Video.

Repository
GetStream/agent-skills
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