"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

Telnyx CLI

⚠️ Unofficial CLI - Not officially sponsored or affiliated with Telnyx.

A production-ready command-line interface for the Telnyx API — programmable communications platform. Send SMS, make calls, manage phone numbers, and verify users directly from your terminal.

Features

• Messages — Send and receive SMS/MMS messages
• Phone Numbers — List, search, and order phone numbers
• Calls — Initiate and control phone calls
• Verify — Send and check 2FA verification codes
• Connections — Manage SIP trunks and connections
• Messaging Profiles — Configure messaging settings
• JSON output — All commands support --json for scripting
• Colorized output — Clean terminal output with chalk

Installation

npm install -g @ktmcp-cli/telnyx

Quick Start

# Get your API key from https://portal.telnyx.com/#/app/api-keys
telnyx config set --api-key YOUR_API_KEY

# Send an SMS
telnyx messages send --from +12025551234 --to +19175559876 --text "Hello from Telnyx CLI!"

# List your phone numbers
telnyx numbers list

# Search for available numbers
telnyx numbers search --country US --area-code 212

Commands

Config

telnyx config set --api-key <key>
telnyx config show

Messages

telnyx messages send --from +1XXX --to +1YYY --text "Hello"
telnyx messages send --from +1XXX --to +1YYY --text "Photo" --media-urls https://example.com/photo.jpg
telnyx messages list
telnyx messages list --json
telnyx messages get <message-id>

Phone Numbers

telnyx numbers list
telnyx numbers list --json
telnyx numbers get <number-id>
telnyx numbers search --country US
telnyx numbers search --country US --area-code 212
telnyx numbers order +12125551234
telnyx numbers order +12125551234 --connection-id <id>

Calls

telnyx calls create --to +1YYY --from +1XXX
telnyx calls create --to +1YYY --from +1XXX --connection-id <id>
telnyx calls hangup <call-control-id>
telnyx calls speak <call-control-id> --text "Hello, this is an automated message"
telnyx calls speak <call-control-id> --text "Bonjour" --language fr-FR --voice female

Verify (2FA)

telnyx verify send --to +1XXX
telnyx verify send --to +1XXX --type sms
telnyx verify send --to +1XXX --type call
telnyx verify check <verification-id> --code 123456
telnyx verify list

Connections

telnyx connections list
telnyx connections get <connection-id>

Messaging Profiles

telnyx profiles list
telnyx profiles get <profile-id>

JSON Output

All commands support --json for structured output:

telnyx numbers list --json | jq '.[].phone_number'
telnyx messages list --json | jq '.[0]'

Why CLI > MCP?

No server to run. No protocol overhead. Just install and go.

• Simpler — Just a binary you call directly
• Composable — Pipe to jq, grep, awk
• Scriptable — Works in cron jobs, CI/CD, shell scripts

License

MIT — Part of the Kill The MCP project.