Twilio SMS Integration
SMS alert delivery for critical incidents via Twilio with acknowledgment tracking and escalation chaining. Reach on-call engineers no matter where they are.
How It Works
Get Your Twilio Credentials
In the Twilio Console, find your Account SID and Auth Token on the dashboard home page. Purchase or use an existing Twilio phone number that will be used as the SMS sender.
Configure Twilio in TigerOps
Enter your Twilio Account SID, Auth Token, and sender phone number in the TigerOps integration panel. Add recipient phone numbers (in E.164 format) as notification targets.
Set Severity Thresholds and Quiet Hours
Configure which severity levels trigger SMS. Set quiet hours windows to suppress SMS during off-hours for low-severity alerts, while critical alerts always bypass quiet hours.
SMS Alerts Deliver with Acknowledgment Links
Engineers receive SMS alerts with incident summary and a short acknowledgment URL. Replying STOP unsubscribes; replying ACK acknowledges the incident in TigerOps.
What You Get Out of the Box
Concise SMS Alert Format
TigerOps SMS messages are optimized for a single 160-character SMS segment: service name, severity, one-line AI summary, and an acknowledgment short URL.
SMS Acknowledgment Tracking
On-call engineers can acknowledge a TigerOps incident by replying ACK to the SMS. The acknowledgment is recorded in TigerOps and escalation is halted.
Critical-Only SMS Filtering
Configure SMS notifications for critical incidents only, while lower-severity alerts route to Slack or email. Prevent SMS fatigue by reserving the channel for emergencies.
Escalation Chaining
If the primary recipient does not acknowledge within a configurable timeout (e.g., 5 minutes), TigerOps automatically sends the SMS to the next engineer in the escalation chain.
Quiet Hours Support
Configure quiet hours per recipient phone number. Warning-level SMS are suppressed during off-hours; critical alerts always bypass quiet hours and send immediately.
Delivery Receipt Tracking
TigerOps uses Twilio delivery webhooks to track SMS delivery status per recipient. Undelivered messages trigger automatic fallback to email or push notification.
Twilio SMS Alert Config
Configure Twilio credentials, recipient numbers, escalation chain, and quiet hours.
# TigerOps — Twilio SMS Integration Config
integrations:
twilio_sms:
account_sid: "${TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID}"
auth_token: "${TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN}"
from_number: "${TWILIO_FROM_NUMBER}"
inbound_webhook: "https://ingest.tigerops.io/webhooks/twilio-sms"
min_severity: critical
ack_keyword: "ACK"
ack_timeout_minutes: 5
recipients:
- phone: "${ONCALL_PRIMARY_PHONE}"
name: "Primary On-Call"
quiet_hours:
start: "22:00"
end: "07:00"
timezone: "America/New_York"
bypass_severity: critical
- phone: "${ONCALL_SECONDARY_PHONE}"
name: "Secondary On-Call"
escalation_delay_minutes: 5
message_template: |
[{{severity_upper}}] {{service_name}}: {{incident_title}}
{{ai_summary_short}}
Ack: {{ack_url}}
delivery_fallback:
enabled: true
fallback_channel: email
fallback_delay_minutes: 10Common Questions
Does TigerOps support Twilio Verify or only the SMS API?
TigerOps uses the Twilio Programmable SMS (Messages API) for alert delivery. Twilio Verify is a separate product for OTP authentication and is not used by the TigerOps integration.
How long is the SMS message TigerOps sends?
TigerOps composes SMS messages to fit within a single SMS segment (160 characters for GSM-7 or 70 characters for Unicode). If the AI summary requires more space, TigerOps uses a short URL that recipients can open for full details. Multi-part SMS can be enabled in settings.
Can recipients reply to the SMS to acknowledge incidents?
Yes, when you configure a Twilio webhook URL pointing to TigerOps for inbound SMS. When a recipient replies ACK to an alert SMS, TigerOps receives the reply via the webhook and records the acknowledgment against the matching incident.
Does TigerOps support SMS to international phone numbers?
Yes. TigerOps sends to any phone number in E.164 format using your Twilio account. International SMS delivery depends on your Twilio account permissions and country-specific regulations. Alphanumeric sender IDs can be configured for regions that support them.
What happens if Twilio cannot deliver the SMS (e.g., recipient out of coverage)?
TigerOps monitors Twilio delivery receipts. If a message remains undelivered after the configured timeout (default 10 minutes), TigerOps marks the delivery as failed and — if escalation fallback is configured — sends the alert via email or triggers the next escalation step.
Reach On-Call Engineers Anywhere via SMS
No credit card required. Connect Twilio in minutes. SMS alerts with acknowledgment tracking immediately.