Verify Node.js Express Quickstart

With just a few lines of code, your Node.js/Express application can verify phone numbers and add an additional layer of security with Twilio Verify.

This Node.js Verify Quickstart will teach you how to do this using our Verify REST API, the Twilio Node.js helper library, and Express.js to ease development.

In this Quickstart, you will learn how to:

1. Sign up for Twilio
2. Set up your development environment
3. Send your first SMS phone verification
4. Check verification codes

Sign up for Twilio

If you already have a Twilio account, you’re all set here! Feel free to jump to the next step.

Before you can send an SMS from Node.js, you'll need to sign up for a Twilio account or sign into your existing account.

You can sign up for a free Twilio trial account here.

• When you sign up, you'll be asked to verify your personal phone number. This helps Twilio verify your identity and also allows you to send test verification messages to your phone from your Twilio account while in trial mode. This phone verification step is exactly what you'll learn how to build in this tutorial!
• Once you verify your number, you'll be asked to create a project. For the sake of this tutorial, you can click on the "Learn and Explore" template. Give your project a name, or just click "skip remaining steps" to continue with the default.
• Once you get through the project creation flow, you'll arrive at your project dashboard in the Twilio Console. This is where you'll be able to access your Account SID, authentication token, create a verification service, and more.

Do I need a phone number?

If you've sent SMS with Twilio in the past, you might remember needing to buy a phone number. With Twilio Verify, we take care of that for you! The Verify API selects the best routes for quickly and reliably delivering verification codes globally.

Create a Verify Service

Verify uses Services for configuration. To send a Verify API request you will need both your Twilio Credentials and a Service SID. You can create and update a Service in two ways:

1. In the Verify Console
2. With the Verify API

Services can be used to edit the name (which shows up in the message template), set the code length (4-10 characters), enable settings like the "do not share warning" and more.

Now that you have a Twilio account and a verification service, you can start writing some code!

To make things even easier, we'll next install Twilio's official helper library for Node.js applications.

Install Node.js and the Twilio Helper Library

If you’ve gone through one of our other Node.js Quickstarts already and have Node.js and the Twilio Node.js helper library installed, you can skip this step and get straight to sending your first verification.

To start a phone verification, you’ll need to have Node.js and the Twilio Node.js helper library installed.

Next we'll get this up and running in a full example project.

Install Node.js and Yarn

See the Node.js website. As well as Yarn.

Clone and Setup the Verification Application

Start by cloning our Node.js repository.

git clone https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/verify-v2-quickstart-node.git

If you don't have git installed or prefer to download the source code you can grab a zip file of the project here.

Install Dependencies

cd verify-v2-quickstart-node

yarn install

Copy .env.example to .env. This is where we'll store sensitive data in environment variables.

cp .env.example .env

Modify your new .env file with your own TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN, and VERIFICATION_SID that you can find in your Twilio Console.

Run the application

yarn start

If your credentials are set up correctly, you'll soon get a message that the app is up!

Use the Node Twilio Verify Demo

Navigate to http://localhost:3000/register. You should see a registration form that looks like this:

Enter the token into the Verification entry form and click Verify:

And with that, your demo app is protected with Twilio's Phone Verification!

What's Next?

Your demo app is now keeping fraudulent users from registering with your business and polluting your database. Next, check out all of the variables and options available to you in the Verify API Reference.

After that, check out adding additional verification channels supported by the Verify API like:

• Email
• TOTP
• Push