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First Steps with Messaging with the Realtime SDK

Send and receive SMS messages from your own Node.js application.

Installation

First, you need to obtain the Realtime SDK. If you are using npm or yarn, from your terminal you can run the following command:

npm install @signalwire/realtime-api

Then, you can include the package in JavaScript as follows:

import { SignalWire } from "@signalwire/realtime-api";
let messageClient = client.messaging;

Obtaining and configuring a number

Log in to your SignalWire Space. From the Phone Numbers section, you can buy a new phone number. You will need at least one number to send and receive messages. After you have acquired a number, open its settings by clicking on "Edit Settings". Scroll down until you reach "Messaging Settings", as shown in the next figure, and configure it to:

  • handle messages using a Relay application,
  • forward the call to the "office" Relay topic
Topic

In Relay V4, a topic is a named scope that allows you to organize and categorize your resources. When you configure a phone number to handle messages with a Relay application and specify a topic, all messages to that number will be delivered to Relay clients listening on that topic.

Ensuring message delivery

If you are sending messages to the US from a 10DLC number, you must register your traffic with the Campaign Registry. Otherwise, the carriers will not deliver your messages. Please see our Campaign Registry - Everything You Need To Know guide for more information.

Sending your first message

To send a message from Node.js you need to instantiate a Messaging client, and then call its send method.

import { SignalWire } from "@signalwire/realtime-api";

const client = await SignalWire({
project: "your-project-id",
token: "your-api-token",
topics: ["office"],
});

let messageClient = client.messaging;

try {
const sendResult = await messageClient.send({
topic: "office",
from: "+1xxx",
to: "+1yyy",
body: "Hello World!",
});

console.log(sendResult);
} catch (e) {
console.error(e.message);
}

We used the "office" topic in two places: first, when initializing the Messaging client. Then, when calling send. You use the topics array in the Client constructor to specify the list of contexts you want to listen to for events. Instead, the topic in the send method determines the topic to associate to the message. If the two topics match, your Client will receive events (message.updated) for this outgoing message too.

You also need to specify a Project ID and API token: find these in the API section of your space, as shown in the following figure. Make sure that your token has the "Messaging" scope enabled.

Receiving incoming messages

Once a Client is initialized, you can listen for incoming messages on the selected topic (in our example, just "office"). For example:

await messageClient.listen({
topics: ["office"],
onMessageReceived: async (message) => {
console.log("Message received", message);
},
});

We used the "office" topic when listening to the messaging client's events. The topics array is used only listen to the phone numbers that you have put in that specific topic from the SignalWire dashboard.

Your event handler receives a message object, which you can use to access fields such as message.body, message.from, message.to, etc.

Next steps

Congratulations! You can now send and receive messages with your Node.js application. You are now ready to explore the advanced guides in the Messaging section from the left menu.