Presence

Presence answers “who is here right now?” Each person on a channel can attach small details, like a name or a colour, and everyone sees them update live. Entries disappear when someone disconnects.

Turn it on in Studio

Services → Realtime → Channels → your rule (or Add rule): switch Presence on (Track who is on the channel) and, if you like, set Kind to Presence. Or turn on Show who is here under Settings to make it the default. Save.

Join with details

const doc = pawabase.realtime.channel("doc:abc", { presence: { name: "Ada", color: "#FF6A00" } });

doc.on("presence", ({ joins, leaves, members }) => renderAvatars(members));

await doc.subscribe();
doc.presenceState();     // everyone here now

doc = pb.realtime.channel("doc:abc", presence={"name": "Ada", "color": "#FF6A00"})
doc.on_presence(lambda joins, leaves: render_avatars(doc.presence_state()))
await doc.subscribe()

Each member has:

Field	Meaning
`user_id`	The signed-in person’s id, or `null` for an anonymous visitor
`meta`	The details they attached
`presence_ref`	An id for this connection. One person on two devices appears twice
`online_at`	When they joined

Group by user_id to show one avatar per person.

Update your details

await doc.track({ name: "Ada", color: "#FF6A00", page: "settings" });

Subscribe first. Keep presence small and long-lived. For fast signals like a cursor position or “typing…”, send a message:

input.addEventListener("input", () => doc.send("typing", { on: true }));
doc.onEvent("typing", (m) => showTyping(m.from));

Read the roster without joining

const members = await pawabase.realtime.presence("doc:abc");

members = pb.realtime.presence("doc:abc")

Useful for “3 people viewing” counters outside the channel.

See it in Studio

In Realtime → Connections you see who is connected; in Playground you can join a channel and watch Present members appear and leave.

Good to know

The same person on two devices appears twice (presence_ref differs).
If a connection drops without closing, its entry is removed after a heartbeat timeout.
Presence doesn’t authenticate who is in your data; the channel’s Subscribe policy decides who may join.
A channel with Subscriber limit set holds at most that many people.

Channels

Messages.

Channel rules

The Presence switch.

Getting started

Set up in Studio

Use it from your app

Build well

Turn it on in Studio

Join with details

Update your details

Read the roster without joining

See it in Studio

Good to know

Channels

Channel rules

​Turn it on in Studio

​Join with details

​Update your details

​Read the roster without joining

​See it in Studio

​Good to know

Channels

Channel rules

Turn it on in Studio

Join with details

Update your details

Read the roster without joining

See it in Studio

Good to know