exotel-cli

Exotel from the terminal, built for coding agents. One command connects Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, VS Code, Windsurf or Claude Desktop to your Exotel account and teaches the agent the Exotel workflows.

npx exotel-cli init

init asks for your Account SID, API key and API token (my.exotel.com → Settings → API Settings), checks them, saves them to ~/.config/exotel/credentials.json (mode 600), registers the Exotel MCP server in every agent it finds (backing up each config file), and installs the Exotel skills.

Requires Node.js 18+. No dependencies.

Install

Tab-completion for npm installs: exotel completion zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_exotel" (or bash, fish; see exotel help completion).

Building the binary yourself: npm run build:binary → dist/exotel (Node 25.5+ to build; the result needs no Node).

Your first call in one command

npm install -g exotel-cli
exotel init        # paste Account SID, API key, API token once
exotel call        # asks what should answer (VoiceBot, App Bazaar flow or your wss bot), who to call, then follows the call live

exotel call picks from your VoiceBots and ExoPhones, remembers your phone number and caller ID (exotel config), asks before anything billed, and ends with what happened and the next command (transcript, call record, exotel explain <status>). Every prompt has a flag, so scripts and agents never get asked: exotel call +9198XXXXXXXX --bot-id Asha --caller-id <ExoPhone> --yes.

Output is a readable table in a terminal and JSON when piped or with --json. Typos get a "did you mean". NO_COLOR=1 turns colours off; --quiet hides progress.

Not sure which API?

exotel ask "connect my OpenAI bot to a phone call"     # recommended API, command, gotchas + docs from both portals
exotel docs search warm transfer                       # search developer.exotel.com + docs.exotel.com (1,200+ pages)
exotel docs show https://developer.exotel.com/docs/agentstream/connect-voice-ai   # read a page as Markdown

What you can do

exotel <command> --help lists every flag (for example exotel trunk --help).

Not covered: Voice v3 (/v3/accounts/{sid}/calls). Use exotel api for it if needed.

Agent skills

exotel skill list
exotel skill install all                         # detected agents, user-wide
exotel skill install exotel-sip-trunking --agent claude --project
exotel skill install all --dir ./my-agent/skills

The skills also live in /skills, so npx skills add exotel/ExotelMCP works too.

Safety, built for agents

• JSON output when piped or with --json, errors included (with Exotel's error code, message and a hint).
• --dry-run on every command that sends, calls or writes: prints the exact request, never the credentials.
• Confirmation: anything billed or that rings a real phone ($), anything irreversible (!) and anything that changes live call routing (~) needs --yes or an interactive "y". Without it the CLI exits with code 3 and prints what it would have done.
• Exit codes: 0 ok, 1 error, 2 usage, 3 confirmation needed, 4 not logged in.
• No secrets in argv: the API token and SIP passwords come from a hidden prompt, an env var or --…-stdin. whoami and mcp config mask secrets unless you pass --reveal.

Two interfaces, one login

The CLI calls Exotel's REST APIs directly. The MCP server (https://mcp.exotel.com/mcp) gives agents tools for VoiceBot, SMS, WhatsApp, Conversational Intelligence and more. exotel init sets up both with the same credentials; the skills say which to use for each task.

CI / non-interactive

export EXOTEL_ACCOUNT_SID=… EXOTEL_API_KEY=… EXOTEL_API_TOKEN=… EXOTEL_API_BASE_URL=https://api.in.exotel.com
exotel numbers list --json
exotel trunk setup --name ci_trunk --number +91… --ip 203.0.113.10 --dry-run

Environment variables override the saved file. EXOTEL_AUTH_JSON passes the full MCP header object; EXOTEL_MCP_URL points at a self-hosted MCP server.

Develop

cd cli && npm test           # unit + CLI tests, no network
node bin/exotel.js doctor    # live checks
npm pack                     # bundles ../skills into the package

Security notes

• Event receiver (events listen, voice-ai … --listen, voice-ai inbound): listens on 127.0.0.1 only. Set EXOTEL_EVENTS_USER / EXOTEL_EVENTS_PASS to require Basic auth, and ask Exotel support to send those credentials on your event endpoint; otherwise anyone with your tunnel URL can post fake events.
• Your bot's public wss URL: add a shared secret (BOT_TOKEN in examples/exotel-voice-agent).
• exotel calls recording sends your Exotel credentials only to *.exotel.com / *.exotel.in over HTTPS.
• exotel integrate elevenlabs setup gives ElevenLabs your Exotel API key and token (ElevenLabs needs them to place calls); it asks first. Use a separate API key for it so you can revoke it on its own.
• claude mcp add receives the MCP Authorization header as a command argument for a moment during exotel init; other clients' config files are written with mode 600.