Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://plivo.com/docs/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Sign up for a Plivo account
When you sign up with Plivo, we give you a free trial account and free credits to experiment with and learn about our services. You can add a number to your account to start testing the full range of our voice and SMS service features.
Follow these steps to get a free trial account:
- Sign up with your work email address.
- Check your inbox for an activation email message from Plivo. Click on the link in the message to activate your account.
- Enter your mobile number to complete the phone verification step.
Sign up with your work email address
If you have any issues creating a Plivo account, please contact our support team for assistance.
To get started, try sending an SMS message either by using our API and XML documents, or via , our visual design tool, which allows you to create message flows using an intuitive canvas and deploy them with few clicks.
Install Node.js, Serverless, Express, and the Plivo Node.js SDK
You must set up and install Node.js, Serverless, Express, and Plivo Node SDK before you send your first SMS message.You also need an AWS account. If you don’t have an account, you can create one for free.Install Node.js
You can check whether you have Node.js installed under macOS or Linux by running the command node --version in a terminal window. Under Windows, open a Windows command prompt or PowerShell and type node -v. If you don’t have Node.js installed or want a more current version, download and install it.Install Serverless, Express, and the Plivo Node.js SDK
Create a project directory and change into it, then use npm to create a new Node.js project.$ mkdir my-express-application && cd my-express-application
$ npm init -f
$ npm install --save serverless-http express plivo
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables. The Serverless framework accesses the values of these variables to publish the project to AWS. If you’ve never obtained these credentials from AWS before, the Serverless framework documentation includes step-by-step instructions on how to do so.Once you’ve set up your development environment, you can start sending and receiving messages using our APIs and XML documents. Here are three common use cases to get you started.Send your first outbound SMS/MMS message
You must have a Plivo phone number to send messages to the US or Canada; you can rent a Plivo number from Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console or via the Numbers API.Create a Serverless server
Create a file called index.js and paste into it this code.const serverless = require('serverless-http');
const express = require('express')
const plivo = require('plivo')
const app = express()
app.get('/outbound_sms/', function(request, response) {
let client = new plivo.Client('<auth_id>', '<auth_token>');
client.messages.create({
src: '<sender_id>',
dst: '<destination_number>',
text: 'Hello, from Node Express and Serverless!'
}
).then(function(message_created) {
console.log(message_created)
});
});
module.exports.handler = serverless(app);
const serverless = require('serverless-http');
const express = require('express')
const plivo = require('plivo')
const app = express()
app.get('/outbound_sms/', function(request, response) {
let client = new plivo.Client('<auth_id>', '<auth_token>');
client.messages.create({
src: '<sender_id>',
dst: '<destination_number>',
text: 'Hello, from Node Express and Serverless!',
type: "mms",
media_urls: ["https://media.giphy.com/media/26gscSULUcfKU7dHq/source.gif"],
media_ids: ["801c2056-33ab-499c-80ef-58b574a462a2"]
}
).then(function(message_created) {
console.log(message_created)
});
});
module.exports.handler = serverless(app);
Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch the values from the environment variables. You can use process.env to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.
Create a Serverless configuration file
Copy the code below and save it in a configuration file called serverless.yml in the project directory, which Serverless uses to handle deployments.# serverless.yml
service: my-express-application
provider:
name: aws
runtime: nodejs16.x
stage: dev
region: us-east-1
functions:
app:
handler: index.handler
url: true
Test
AWS will report an endpoint on which you can find your application — for example, here it shows https://mps46xe2isjinod7x5yu5w3kza0hlrld.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/outbound_sms/. Visit that URL and you should see your basic server application in action.Receive your first inbound SMS/MMS message
To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.Modify the Serverless server
We will add our code to the index.js file we already built.const serverless = require('serverless-http');
const express = require('express')
const bodyParser = require('body-parser')
const plivo = require('plivo')
const app = express()
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
extended: true
}));
app.use(function(req, response, next) {
response.contentType('application/xml');
next();
});
app.get('/outbound_sms/', function(request, response) {
// Send SMS code...
});
// receive SMS
app.get('/receive_sms/', function(request, response) {
let from_number = request.body.From || request.query.From;
let to_number = request.body.To || request.query.To;
let text = request.body.Text || request.query.Text;
console.log('Message received - From: ' + from_number + ', To: ' + to_number + ', Text: ' + text);
});
module.exports.handler = serverless(app);
const serverless = require('serverless-http');
const express = require('express')
const plivo = require('plivo')
const bodyParser = require('body-parser')
const app = express()
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
extended: true
}));
app.use(function(req, response, next) {
response.contentType('application/xml');
next();
});
app.get('/outbound_mms/', function(request, response) {
// Send MMS code ...
});
// receive MMS
app.get('/receive_mms/', function(request, response) {
let from_number = request.body.From || request.query.From;
let to_number = request.body.To || request.query.To;
let text = request.body.Text || request.query.Text;
let media_url = request.body.Media0 || request.query.Media0;
console.log('Message received - From: ' + from_number + ', To: ' + to_number + ', Text: ' + text+ ', Media: ' + media_url);
});
module.exports.handler = serverless(app);
Create a Plivo application to receive messages
Associate the controller you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visiting Messaging > Applications and click Add New Application. You can also use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Receive SMS. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example https://<yourdomain>.com/receive_sms/) in the Message URL field and set the method to GET. Click Create Application to save your application.Assign a Plivo number to your application
Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Receive SMS (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.Test
Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone.Reply to an incoming SMS/MMS message
To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.Modify the Serverless server
We will add our code to the index.js file we already built.const serverless = require('serverless-http');
const express = require('express')
const bodyParser = require('body-parser')
const plivo = require('plivo')
const app = express()
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
extended: true
}));
app.use(function(req, response, next) {
response.contentType('application/xml');
next();
});
app.get('/outbound_sms/', function(request, response) {
//Send SMS code...
});
app.get('/receive_sms/', function(request, response) {
// Receive SMS code...
});
// reply incoming SMS/MMS
app.get('/reply_sms/', function(request, response) {
let from_number = request.body.From || request.query.From;
let to_number = request.body.To || request.query.To;
let text = request.body.Text || request.query.Text;
console.log('Message received - From: ' + from_number + ', To: ' + to_number + ', Text: ' + text);
//send the details to generate an XML
let r = plivo.Response();
let params = {
'src': to_number,
'dst': from_number,
};
let message_body = "This is an automatic response";
r.addMessage(message_body, params);
console.log(r.toXML());
response.end(r.toXML());
});
module.exports.handler = serverless(app);
Create a Plivo application to reply to messages
Associate the controller you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visiting Messaging > Applications and click Add New Application. You can also use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Reply Incoming SMS. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example http://<yourdomain>.com/reply_sms/) in the Message URL field and set the method to GET. Click Create Application to save your application.Assign a Plivo number to your application
Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Reply Incoming SMS (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.Assign a Plivo number to your application
Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone. You should receive a reply.More use cases
We illustrate more than a dozen use cases with code for both API/XML and PHLO on our documentation pages.
