Twilio Client Quickstart for Node.js

This template is part of Twilio CodeExchange. If you encounter any issues with this code, please open an issue at github.com/twilio-labs/code-exchange/issues.

About

This application should give you a ready-made starting point for writing your own voice apps with Twilio Client. This application is built in Node.

Implementations in other languages:

.NET	Java	Python	PHP	Ruby
Done	Done	Done	Done	Done

Set Up

Requirements

• Nodejs v10 or v12

Twilio Account Settings

Before we begin, we need to collect all the config values we need to run the application.

Config Value	Description
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID	Your primary Twilio account identifier - find this in the console here.
TWILIO_TWIML_APP_SID	The TwiML application with a voice URL configured to access your server running this app - create one in the console here. Also, you will need to configure the Voice "REQUEST URL" on the TwiML app once you've got your server up and running.
TWILIO_CALLER_ID	A Twilio phone number in E.164 format - you can get one here
TWILIO_API_KEY / TWILIO_API_SECRET	Your REST API Key information needed to create an Access Token - create one here.

Local development

1. First clone this repository and cd into it:

   git clone https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/client-quickstart-node.git
   cd client-quickstart-node

2. Create a configuration file for your application and edit the .env file.

   cp .env.example .env

   See Twilio Account Settings to locate the necessary environment variables.

3. Install the dependencies.

   npm install

4. Launch local development web server.

   npm start

5. Navigate to http://localhost:3000

6. Expose your application to the wider internet using ngrok. You can click here for more details. This step is important because the application won't work as expected if you run it through localhost.

   ngrok http 3000

7. When ngrok starts up, it will assign a unique URL to your tunnel. It might be something like https://asdf456.ngrok.io. Take note of this.

8. Configure your TwiML app's Voice "REQUEST URL" to be your ngrok URL plus /voice. For example:

   

   You should now be ready to rock! Make some phone calls. Open it on another device and call yourself. Note that Twilio Client requires WebRTC enabled browsers, so Edge and Internet Explorer will not work for testing. We'd recommend Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox instead.

   Note: You must use the https URL, otherwise some browsers will block microphone access.

   

That's it!

Docker

If you have Docker already installed on your machine, you can use our docker-compose.yml to setup your project.

1. Make sure you have the project cloned.
2. Setup the .env file as outlined in the Local Development steps.
3. Run docker-compose up.
4. Follow the steps in Local Development on how to expose your port to Twilio using a tool like ngrok and configure the remaining parts of your application.

Tests

To execute tests, run the following command in the project directory:

npm test

Cloud deployment

Additionally to trying out this application locally, you can deploy it to a variety of host services. Here is a small selection of them.

Please be aware that some of these might charge you for the usage or might make the source code for this application visible to the public. When in doubt research the respective hosting service first.

Service
Heroku

Resources

• The CodeExchange repository can be found here.

Contributing

This template is open source and welcomes contributions. All contributions are subject to our Code of Conduct.

License

MIT

Disclaimer

No warranty expressed or implied. Software is as is.