"Six months ago, everyone was talking about MCPs. And I was like, screw MCPs. Every MCP would be better as a CLI."

— Peter Steinberger, Founder of OpenClaw Watch on YouTube (~2:39:00) | Lex Fridman Podcast #491

Apideck SMS CLI

A production-ready command-line interface for the Apideck SMS API. Send and manage SMS messages across multiple providers (Twilio, MessageBird, Plivo, Vonage, and more) through a single unified API from your terminal.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial CLI tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Apideck.

Features

• Unified SMS API — One CLI to rule all SMS providers (Twilio, MessageBird, Plivo, Telnyx, Vonage, etc.)
• Message Management — List, send, get, update, and delete SMS messages
• Provider Agnostic — Switch providers without changing your code
• JSON output — All commands support --json for scripting and piping
• Colorized output — Clean, readable terminal output

Why CLI > MCP

MCP servers are complex, stateful, and require a running server process. A CLI is:

• Simpler — Just a binary you call directly
• Composable — Pipe output to jq, grep, awk, and other tools
• Scriptable — Use in shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, cron jobs
• Debuggable — See exactly what's happening with --json flag
• AI-friendly — AI agents can call CLIs just as easily as MCPs, with less overhead

Installation

npm install -g @ktmcp-cli/apideckcomsms

Authentication Setup

1. Get Apideck Credentials

1. Sign up at apideck.com
2. Create an application to get your App ID
3. Generate an API key
4. Connect an SMS provider (Twilio, MessageBird, etc.)

2. Configure the CLI

apideckcomsms config set --api-key YOUR_API_KEY --app-id YOUR_APP_ID

Optionally set a consumer ID (defaults to 'default-consumer'):

apideckcomsms config set --consumer-id YOUR_CONSUMER_ID

3. Verify

apideckcomsms config show

Commands

Configuration

# Set credentials
apideckcomsms config set --api-key <key> --app-id <id>

# Set consumer ID (optional)
apideckcomsms config set --consumer-id <id>

# Show current config
apideckcomsms config show

Messages

# List messages
apideckcomsms messages list

# Get a specific message
apideckcomsms messages get <message-id>

# Send an SMS
apideckcomsms messages send --to "+1234567890" --body "Hello from CLI"
apideckcomsms messages send --to "+1234567890" --from "+0987654321" --body "Hello"

# Delete a message
apideckcomsms messages delete <message-id>

JSON Output

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

# Get all messages as JSON
apideckcomsms messages list --json

# Pipe to jq for filtering
apideckcomsms messages list --json | jq '.[] | select(.status == "delivered")'

# Send message and capture ID
ID=$(apideckcomsms messages send --to "+1234567890" --body "Test" --json | jq -r '.id')

Examples

Send SMS notifications

# Send a simple message
apideckcomsms messages send --to "+1234567890" --body "Your order has shipped!"

# Send with specific sender
apideckcomsms messages send \
  --from "+0987654321" \
  --to "+1234567890" \
  --body "Verification code: 123456"

Track message delivery

# Send message and get ID
apideckcomsms messages send --to "+1234567890" --body "Test" --json

# Check message status
apideckcomsms messages get <message-id> --json | jq '.status'

Bulk messaging with shell

# Read numbers from file and send
while read number; do
  apideckcomsms messages send --to "$number" --body "Important update"
  sleep 1
done < phone_numbers.txt

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at github.com/ktmcp-cli/apideckcomsms.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

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Part of the KTMCP CLI project — replacing MCPs with simple, composable CLIs.

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