stephjs / sms-hype-mondays-up

tiny API: SMS-HMU aka Sunday scaries Messaging Service to Hype Mondays Up! 🎉

Tiny API: SMS-HMU aka Sunday scaries Messaging Service to Hype Mondays Up! 🎉

The WHY

I get major Sunday scaries 🥺, so I'm building this SMS-HMU API to send myself funny / motivational text messages to hype me up every Monday. Feel free to fork this as starter code for whatever text message app you're building! 😁

Technologies used

I built this tiny but mighty SMS (short message service) API on top of AWS SNS (Amazon Simple Notification Service).

How do I use the API?

Pass the API a phone number and message, and that number will receive a text with the message. 📲

This query: 'http://localhost:3000/?message=hello%20world&number=15555555555' would send 'hello world' to [phone]

Tiny Tutorial

1. Create a starter project

• npm init

2. Install express and nodemon

• npm i express nodemon
• add a start script to package.json "start": "nodemon app.js"
• copy/pasta the starter express server code into app.js

3. Install dotenv and create .env and .gitignore files

• npm i dotenv
• touch .env .gitignore
• IMPORTANT: add .env to the .gitignore so you don't leak your creds
• require dotenv in app.js: require('dotenv').config();

4. Create an IAM user for the project

• sign into the AWS IAM Console
• create an IAM group / user with programatic SNS admin access
• copy/pasta the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY into the .env file

5. npm i aws-sdk

• paste the aws-sdk starter code into app.js to check whether you've set your credentials correctly in .env
• Saving your changes should trigger console logged

6. Visit the AWS SNS Console.

• Review SMS pricing docs. As of Jan 2021, Your first 100 SMS messages sent to US phone numbers each month are free.
• SNS is a regional service. Visit the AWS SNS Console and use the upper right hand dropdown to find the closest available service region to you.
• add your region to the .env file ex: AWS_REGION=us-west-2

7. Write API code.

• destructure args off of req.query: const { sender, message, number } = req.query;
• Send a request using SNS -- see AWS JavaScript SDK SNS docs

8. Test your app:

• http://localhost:3000/?message=hello%20world&number=15555555555
• replace 15555555555 with your phone number

8. Deploy!