Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
65 lines (43 loc) · 3.29 KB

twilio-setup.md

File metadata and controls

65 lines (43 loc) · 3.29 KB
Raw

Twilio Setup

Before you can get this Retool app working, you'll need to do some pre-work in Twilio.

0. Sign up for a Twilio account and get a phone number

If you don't already have a Twilio account, you'll need to get one! The good news is that Twilio makes it easy (and free!) to get started. Just head over to https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio and sign up!

As you go through the onboarding flow, indicate that you'll be building a messaging app. Once you're logged into Twilio console, you'll be prompted to get a Twilio phone number. Note the phone number you were assigned for later!

1. Verify your SMS-enabled phone number

Verify your phone number to enable outbound SMS to that number. Note that this is only necessary with trial Twilio accounts.

2. Create an API key/secret pair

Create an API key and note the key's SID and Secret for later.

3. Create a Twilio Conversations Service

Create a Conversations Service and note the SID for later. A Conversations Service is a top-level container for other resources in the Twilio Conversations REST API.

Note: you must create a new Conversations Service for use exclusively with this demo! The demo deletes all Conversations inside of this service during initialization, so using an existing Conversations Service is unsafe!

4. Create a Twilio Functions Service

A Twilio Service is a container for the server-less functions which make it possible for your Retool app to get a chat access token.

5. Set Twilio Service environment variables

In your new Twilio Service, set the following environment variables:

Key Value
CONVERSATIONS_SID The Conversations SID you noted in step three
API_KEY_SID The SID you noted in step one
API_KEY_SECRET The Secret you noted in step one

6. Configure Twilio Service dependencies

The server-less functions running in Twilio need access to a few software libraries to function properly. Import the following NPM modules:

Module Version
lodash 4.17.11
@twilio/runtime-handler 1.2.1
twilio 3.29.2
xmldom 0.1.27
util 0.11.0

7. Create a function to issue chat tokens

In order for the embedded Twilio Conversations client to authenticate with Twilio's services, it needs a valid access token. To create a function for issuing chat tokens:

  1. Add a function
  2. Specify a path chat_token
  3. Set the function to Public
    • Heads up! This means that anyone who can guess the URL of your function can issue valid access tokens. You would need to implement authentication on this endpoint for a production use-case!
  4. Copy and paste the contents of chat_token.js into the function and save
  5. Copy the URL for this function for later use

8. Deploy your Twilio Service!

This finalizes all of the changes you've made.

Next steps

Next, set up the Retool app to make calls using your Twilio service!

Retool Setup