smsbot is a simple application that periodically generates a message from one of several configured sources and sends that message to a list of recipients using the Twilio API.

Messages are sent at a random time within regular time windows configured by the user. For example, smsbot can be configured to send a message between 9am and 5pm every day.

For more details on smsbot's features, see the Configuration section below.

1. Install Go and configure $GOPATH

2. Insall smsbot:

go get -u github.com/reynoldsbd3/smsbot

3. Copy config-example.json to the current working directory and rename it to config.json, replacing its contents with valid Twilio API credentials

Currently, there is no option to specify the path of config.json. It must be placed in the current working directory.

4. Run the smsbot command

smsbot really only does two things: it generates messages and dispatches those messages. Each message is retrieved from a message source that is randomly selected from a pre-configured list of sources. Once a message is generated, it is sent to each configured recipient using the Twilio SMS API.

This process is repeated indefinitely at random times according to smsbot's timing parameters. For example, the configuration might specify sending messages daily at a random time between noon and 9 P.M.

In order to use smsbot, you must have Twilio API credentials. Access to the SMS API is free (with strings attached). Click here to learn more and sign up for access.

smsbot needs to know your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token as well as the phone number assigned to you by Twilio. These are configured like so in config.json:

{
    ...
    "twilioSid": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
    "twilioToken": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
    "twilioNumber": "+15551234567",
    ...
}

Each time a message is generated, it is sent to each number configured in the recipients list. Note that if you want only one recipient, the number must still appear in the JSON list within the [...] brackets.

{
    ...
    "recipients": [
        "+15551112222",
        "+15553334444"
    ],
    ...
}

smsbot allows you to configure several message sources. When it's time to generate a message, a random source is selected and used to generate a message.

Message source configuration looks like this:

{
    ...
    "sources": [
        {
            "type": "SOURCE_TYPE",
            "params": {
                ...
            }
        },
        {
            "type": "SOURCE_TYPE",
            "params": {
                ...
            }
        }
    ]
}

There are several types of message source, and each will have a different set of parameters that may be configured.

A static message source is a simple, static message. Each time the source is selected, it will generate the same message.

{
    ...
    "sources": [
        ...
        {
            "type": "static",
            "params": {
                
                // Actual text of the static message
                "message": "This is the content of the static message",
                
                // Optional URL providing message context
                "url": "http://example.com/"
            }
        },
        ...
    ]
}

A quote source is a message source that uses the They Said So API to retrieve the quote of the day in the specified category.

{
    ...
    "sources": [
        ...
        {
            "type": "quote",
            "params": {
                "category": "art"
            }
        },
        ...
    ]
}

To keep from using the various API's involved, there is a debug option that causes smsbot to simply print out what it would actually be doing.

{
    ...
    "debug": true,
    ...
}