Give your AI agent a phone number.
The textbee MCP server lets Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-enabled agent send and read SMS through your own Android phone. Open source, no per-message markup.
Install in your client
Grab an API key from your textbee dashboard (free tier works), pair the Android app if you have not yet, then add the server to your client.
claude mcp add textbee -s user -e TEXTBEE_API_KEY=your-key -- npx -y @textbee/mcpOne command, registered for every project.
Self-hosting textbee? Add TEXTBEE_BASE_URL with your instance URL to the env block. The /api/v1 suffix is optional and added automatically.
Three tools, everything an agent needs
send_sms
Send a text to one or many recipients from your own number. The agent sees delivery cost hints like segment counts, and every send flows through your plan limits.
get_messages
Read messages across every device on the account: wait for a reply, pick up an OTP, or check the delivery status of a send, with cursor pagination that never misses a message.
list_devices
See the phones on the account, which one sends by default, and when each last checked in.
Then just ask
- “Text +1 555 0134 that the deploy finished, and let me know when the message is delivered.”
- “Watch for a verification code from my bank and read it back to me.”
- “Did anyone reply to the reminder I sent this morning?”
Built to be trusted with your number
Your key stays on your machine
The API key lives in your own MCP client config and is only ever sent to the textbee API. The server is open source (MIT), so you can read exactly what it does, and you can revoke the key from your dashboard at any time.
Nothing to deploy
npx runs the server locally and your paired Android phone does the sending. No hosted middleman, no SIM rental, no per-message markup on top of your plan.
Built for how agents work
Three focused tools with clear descriptions, honest errors an agent can act on, and plan limits enforced server-side so a runaway loop cannot outspend your plan.
Using claude.ai or another remote-only client?
Some clients cannot launch a local server. For those, textbee runs a hosted streamable HTTP endpoint with the same three tools and the same plan limits. Add it as a custom connector:
- Endpoint
- https://mcp.textbee.dev/mcp
- Auth
- Your textbee API key as the bearer token (or an
x-textbee-api-keyheader).
The trade-off, stated plainly: with the hosted endpoint your key passes through textbee's server on every request. It is used only for that request and never logged or stored, but it does leave your machine. When your client can run npx, prefer the local server above: the key stays with you.
Frequently asked questions
MCP is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude connect to tools and data sources. An MCP server exposes capabilities, in this case sending and reading SMS, and any MCP-compatible app can use them. The textbee MCP server is a small open-source program that runs on your machine and connects your textbee account to your AI assistant.
More detail in the MCP server docs and the agent quickstart.