How To Make REST API Requests in PowerShell

The first bit you'll need to do is export your Twilio account credentials and phone number, which you'll need to send an outbound SMS. Your account SID and auth token can be found on your Console dashboard, and you can use one of your existing phone numbers (or buy one to use) in the console as well.

There are a number of ways to configure system environment variables on Windows, but you can set user-level environment variables in PowerShell with the following commands. Replace the strings below with the relevant values from your account.

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[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID", "your_account_sid", "User")
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[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN", "your_auth_token", "User")
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[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TWILIO_NUMBER", "+16518675309", "User")

In the example script at the beginning of the article, we access these variables through the $env variable.

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# Pull in Twilio account info, previously set as environment variables
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$sid = $env:TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID
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$token = $env:TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN
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$number = $env:TWILIO_NUMBER

After exporting our Twilio account info, we need to configure a URL for the API endpoint we want to hit.

$url = "https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/$sid/Messages.json"

We substitute a variable that holds our account SID, which is also necessary for the API URL. We append the .json extension to the URL to get the response back in JSON format.

Next, we create a hash table with the POST parameters we need to send with our request.

$params = @{ To = "+15558675309"; From = $number; Body = "Hello from PowerShell" }

What are those parameters for?

• To: The phone number you want to send the SMS to
• From: A Twilio-powered phone number the SMS message will come from
• Body: The actual text of the outbound message

Now comes a slightly wonky bit we need to do to pass our HTTP basic auth credentials to Twilio in this API request. We need to create a PSCredential to pass into the Invoke-WebRequest command.

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$p = $token | ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force
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$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($sid, $p)

Now that we have all our configuration ready, we use the Invoke-WebRequest command to actually send the SMS. Don't forget the -UseBasicParsing option to prevent creating a DOM from the results, and to avoid errors on systems without Internet Explorer installed (server core, and Windows 10 systems only running Edge browsers).

We also use the ConvertFrom-Json command to parse the JSON response from the Twilio API, and Select command to extract properties from the resulting object.

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Invoke-WebRequest $url -Method Post -Credential $credential -Body $params -UseBasicParsing |
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ConvertFrom-Json | Select sid, body

And there we have it! Let's run that whole thing back one more time.

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# Pull in Twilio account info, previously set as environment variables
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$sid = $env:TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID
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$token = $env:TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN
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$number = $env:TWILIO_NUMBER
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# Twilio API endpoint and POST params
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$url = "https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/$sid/Messages.json"
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$params = @{ To = "+15558675309"; From = $number; Body = "Hello from PowerShell" }
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# Create a credential object for HTTP basic auth
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$p = $token | ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force
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$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($sid, $p)
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# Make API request, selecting JSON properties from the response
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Invoke-WebRequest $url -Method Post -Credential $credential -Body $params -UseBasicParsing |
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ConvertFrom-Json | Select sid, body

With this code, we can make a REST API request, authenticated with HTTP basic, from PowerShell scripts. If you've run it, you've seen the interesting conclusion - a nice outgoing text message without leaving the comfort of PS.

Want to try something more complex? Try Twilio's Documentation landing page to see our extensive collection of guides, tutorials, and quickstarts.