Twilio Video JavaScript SDK Tutorial for Python

About

This application uses the lightweight Flask Framework. Once you set up the application, you will be able to create and join free two-person Video chat rooms.

You can read the Video Tutorial that walks through the process of building this application from the ground up, or follow the instructions below to set up this application locally and start using it right away.

Set Up

Requirements

• Python 3 (version 3.6 or above)
• pip for installing dependencies
• A free Twilio account. Sign up for a free account or log into an existing account.

Twilio Account Settings

Before we begin, we need to collect all the config values we need to run the application.

Config Value	Description
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID	Your primary Twilio account identifier - find this in the console here.
TWILIO_API_KEY_SID / TWILIO_API_KEY_SECRET	Your REST API Key information needed to create an Access Token - create an API key here. The API_KEY value should be the key's SID.

Local development

1. First, clone this repository and cd into it.

   git clone https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/intro-video-tutorial-python.git
   cd intro-video-tutorial-python

2. Run make install. This command will create a Python virtual environment, load it, and install the Python dependencies.

   make install

3. Create a configuration file for your application by copying the .env.example file to a new file called .env. Then, edit the .env file to include your account and application details.

   cp .env.example .env

   See Twilio Account Settings to locate the necessary environment variables.

4. Run the application. It will run locally on port 5000.

   make serve

5. Navigate to http://localhost:5000. Enter the name of a video room you'd like to join and click "Join Room". You might be prompted to grant access to your camera and microphone.

   You can open a new browser tab, navigate to http://localhost:5000 again, and join the same room from the new tab. Now, you should see two videos in each window, one for each browser tab.

6. Optional: Install ngrok

   Expose your application to the wider internet using ngrok. This step will allow others to join the application that's running on your local computer.

   First, download and install ngrok. Then, run it with the following command:

   ngrok http 5000

   When ngrok starts up, it will assign a unique URL to your tunnel and label it as the "Forwarding" URL. You can send this URL to others so that they can test your application too.