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Chimes

Chimes are customer notifications. Use them for receipts, order updates, reminders, campaign messages, and other merchant-to-customer communication that is not an authentication challenge.

Use MCP for customer-message operations

An authenticated AI agent can send a short SMS to an existing customer after confirmation, or inspect recent message delivery state without exposing message bodies or recipient contact details.

MCP tools: send_customer_sms, list_messages or get_message

Confirmed MCP actions require explicit form confirmation before Inttegro changes state.

Use this page to choose the right communication primitive. Use the Chimes API reference for exact request attributes, response shapes, and examples.

What Chimes are for

A Chime is one notification to one recipient. It records the recipient, channel, sender, rendered message, delivery status, timestamps, and optional tracking data.

Schedules and broadcasts are higher-level orchestration records. They create individual Chimes when they execute, and those individual Chime IDs are what you inspect for recipient-level delivery.

NeedUse
Message one customer nowSend chime
Message one or more recipients laterSchedule chime
Send the same message to many recipientsBroadcast chimes
Check one notificationLookup chime
Browse recent notificationsPage chimes
Verify phone controlOne-time passwords, not Chimes

The communication model

Chimes separate recipient selection from message content.

PartWhat it controls
RecipientInline phone or email, or a saved customer plus selected transport.
TransportSMS or email. The resolved recipient determines which content shape is valid.
Message contentPlain SMS, email content, or a stored template reference.
Purpose and custom dataYour tracking fields for support, campaigns, or reconciliation.
TransmissionProvider handoff, delivery, failure, or suppression details when available.

Stored templates must match the transport. An SMS template cannot be sent to an email recipient, and an email template cannot be sent to an SMS recipient.

Choose the right sending pattern

PatternBest forWatch out for
Immediate ChimeReceipts, one-off support messages, order updates, simple reminders.The API call creates the notification immediately. Use idempotency keys.
Scheduled ChimeAppointment reminders, delayed follow-ups, known future messages.Store the schedule ID and inspect recipient-level execution results after it runs.
BroadcastCampaign or announcement to many recipients.Creation is asynchronous; inspect the broadcast and generated Chimes instead of assuming every recipient succeeded.
OTPSign-in, sensitive action approval, phone ownership checks.OTP has a verdict-bearing verification flow; Chimes do not.

Chimes are not a real-time chat system. They are outbound notifications with delivery tracking.

Delivery and observability

Delivery state tells you what Inttegro and the downstream provider know so far. It does not prove that a human read or understood the message.

Use lookup and page operations to answer support questions:

  • Was the Chime created?
  • Which channel was used?
  • Was it handed off for delivery?
  • Did the provider report delivery, failure, suppression, or another terminal outcome?
  • Which schedule or broadcast created it, if any?

Keep your own business action separate from delivery telemetry. For example, “receipt SMS delivered” is not the same as “customer accepted the order.”

Content and safety

Write messages for the channel.

  • Keep SMS short and action-oriented.
  • Avoid secrets, OTP codes, private tokens, and sensitive account details in Chimes.
  • Use templates when many messages share the same structure.
  • Include enough context for the customer to trust the message.
  • Use purpose and custom data for your own tracking.
  • Respect consent, opt-out, and country-specific messaging rules for your customer base.

Email Chimes support richer content, but plain text still matters. Send clear subject lines, useful fallback text, and only HTML you are comfortable showing to customers.

Where MCP helps

MCP currently helps with a narrow, safe subset:

  • send a short SMS to an existing saved customer after confirmation;
  • list recent message delivery statuses; and
  • look up one message’s lifecycle state.

MCP does not expose arbitrary phone-number sends, email sends, schedules, broadcasts, message bodies, or raw recipient contact details. Use the API or dashboard for those workflows.

Implementation checklist

Before relying on Chimes in production:

  • decide whether the message is immediate, scheduled, broadcast, or OTP;
  • use saved customers when possible so recipient state stays centralized;
  • use idempotency keys for create operations;
  • store returned Chime, schedule, or broadcast IDs;
  • build delivery-status handling for failed or suppressed messages;
  • avoid putting credentials or sensitive personal data in message bodies;
  • use templates for repeated operational messages; and
  • page or lookup Chimes when support needs delivery evidence.