Programmable Messaging Quickstart - Node.js

You can sign up for a free Twilio trial account here.

• When you sign up, you'll be asked to verify your personal phone number. This helps Twilio verify your identity and also allows you to send test messages to your phone from your Twilio account while in trial mode.
• Once you verify your number, you'll be asked a series of questions to customize your experience.
• Once you finish the onboarding flow, you'll arrive at your project dashboard in the Twilio Console. This is where you'll be able to access your Account SID, authentication token, find a Twilio phone number, and more.

If you don't currently own a Twilio phone number with SMS functionality, you'll need to purchase one. After navigating to the Buy a Number page, check the SMS box and click Search.

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You'll then see a list of available phone numbers and their capabilities. Find a number that suits your fancy and click Buy to add it to your account.

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To send your first SMS, you'll need to have Node.js and the Twilio Node Helper Library installed.

You can check if you already have Node.js version 14 or later installed on your machine by opening up a terminal and running the following command:

node --version

You should see something like:

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$ node --version
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v18.1.2

If you don't have Node.js installed, head over to nodejs.org and download the appropriate installer for your system. Once you've installed Node, return to your terminal and run the command above once again. If you don't see the installed node version, you may need to relaunch your terminal.

Install the Twilio Node helper library using npm:

npm install twilio

This will install the twilio module so that Node.js scripts in the current directory can use it.

Now that we have Node.js and the Twilio Node.js library installed, we can send an outbound text message from the Twilio phone number we just purchased with a single API request. Create and open a new file called send_sms.js and type or paste in this code sample.

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// Download the helper library from https://www.twilio.com/docs/node/install
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const twilio = require("twilio"); // Or, for ESM: import twilio from "twilio";
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// Find your Account SID and Auth Token at twilio.com/console
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// and set the environment variables. See http://twil.io/secure
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const accountSid = process.env.TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID;
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const authToken = process.env.TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN;
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const client = twilio(accountSid, authToken);
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async function createMessage() {
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  const message = await client.messages.create({
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    body: "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs?",
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    from: "+15017122661",
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    to: "+15558675310",
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  });
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  console.log(message.body);
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}
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createMessage();

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{
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  "account_sid": "ACXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
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  "api_version": "2010-04-01",
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  "body": "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs?",
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  "date_created": "Thu, 24 Aug 2023 05:01:45 +0000",
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  "date_sent": "Thu, 24 Aug 2023 05:01:45 +0000",
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  "date_updated": "Thu, 24 Aug 2023 05:01:45 +0000",
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  "direction": "outbound-api",
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  "error_code": null,
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  "error_message": null,
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  "from": "+15017122661",
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  "num_media": "0",
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  "num_segments": "1",
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  "price": null,
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  "price_unit": null,
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  "messaging_service_sid": "MGaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
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  "sid": "SMaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
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  "status": "queued",
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  "subresource_uris": {
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    "media": "/2010-04-01/Accounts/ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Messages/SMaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Media.json"
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  },
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  "tags": {
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    "campaign_name": "Spring Sale 2022",
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    "message_type": "cart_abandoned"
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  },
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  "to": "+15558675310",
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  "uri": "/2010-04-01/Accounts/ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Messages/SMaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.json"
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}

You'll need to edit this file a little more before your message will send:

Swap the placeholder values for accountSid and authToken with your personal Twilio credentials. Go to https://www.twilio.com/console and log in. On this page, you'll find your unique Account SID and Auth Token, which you'll need any time you send messages through the Twilio client like this.

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Open send_sms.js and replace the values for accountSid and authToken with your unique values.

Remember that SMS-enabled phone number you bought just a few minutes ago? Go ahead and replace the existing from number with that one, making sure to use E.164 formatting:

[+][country code][phone number including area code]

Replace the to phone number with your mobile phone number. This can be any phone number that can receive text messages, but it's a good idea to test with your own phone so you can see the magic happen! As above, you should use E.164 formatting for this value.

Save your changes and run this script from your terminal:

node send_sms.js

That's it! In a few moments, you should receive an SMS from your Twilio number on your phone.

Are your customers in the U.S. or Canada? You can also send them MMS messages by adding just one line of code. Check out this guide to sending MMS to see how it's done.

When your Twilio number receives an incoming message, Twilio will send an HTTP request to a server you control. This callback mechanism is known as a webhook. When Twilio sends your application a request, it expects a response in the TwiML XML format telling it how to respond to the message. Let's see how we would build this in Node.js using Express.

On the command line in your current directory, run the following command:

npm install express

Create a file called server.js and use the following code to create a server that can handle incoming messages.

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const express = require('express');
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const { MessagingResponse } = require('twilio').twiml;
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const app = express();
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app.post('/sms', (req, res) => {
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  const twiml = new MessagingResponse();
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  twiml.message('The Robots are coming! Head for the hills!');
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  res.type('text/xml').send(twiml.toString());
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});
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app.listen(3000, () => {
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  console.log('Express server listening on port 3000');
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});

Run this server with the following command:

node server.js

You'll see that the server starts up on port 3000.

Before Twilio can send your application webhook requests, you'll need to make your application accessible over the Internet. While you can do that in any number of ways, we recommend using the Twilio CLI during local development. We'll show you how to set that up next so your app can receive messages.

brew tap twilio/brew && brew install twilio

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wget -qO- https://twilio-cli-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/twilio_pub.asc \
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  | sudo apt-key add -
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sudo touch /etc/apt/sources.list.d/twilio.list
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echo 'deb https://twilio-cli-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/apt/ /' \
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  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/twilio.list
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sudo apt update
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sudo apt install -y twilio

Run twilio login to get the Twilio CLI connected to your account. Visit https://www.twilio.com/console, and you'll find your unique Account SID and Auth Token to provide to the CLI.

You can reveal your auth token by clicking on the eyeball icon:

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Now, you can use the CLI to connect your phone number to your Node.js app.

Now, you need to configure your Twilio phone number to call your webhook URL whenever a new message comes in. Just run this CLI command, replacing the phone number with your Twilio phone number:

twilio phone-numbers:update "+15017122661" --sms-url="http://localhost:1337/sms"

Make sure you are running on the command line (in separate tabs) both node server.js and your twilio command.

With both of those servers running, we're ready for the fun part - testing our new Express application!

Send an SMS from your mobile phone to your Twilio phone number that's configured with this webhook. You should see an HTTP request in your ngrok console. Your Express app will process the text message, and you'll get your response back as an SMS.

Now that you know the basics of sending and receiving SMS and MMS text messages with Node.js, you might want to check out these resources.

• REST API documentation
• TwiML reference docs
• Send a Text in Node in 30 Seconds with Twilio
• How to Receive and Respond to Text Messages with Node.js, Express and Twilio

Happy hacking!