Nexmo Dispatch API

Name: Nexmo Dispatch API API
Brand: Nexmo Dispatch API
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentCommunicationsChat Messagingbasic, bearer1 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Send a message that automatically falls over from one channel to another (e.g., WhatsApp then SMS) until one succeeds. Single POST endpoint that defines a failover workflow.

Connect the Nexmo Dispatch API to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Nexmo Dispatch API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Install Jentic One Beta (Self-Hosted)

Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Nexmo Dispatch API API.

Define a failover workflow that tries WhatsApp, Viber, Messenger, MMS, or SMS in sequence until a configured condition_status is reached

Set a per-step timeout (failover_expiry) after which Dispatch advances to the next channel if no read or delivery event fires

Specify the condition (delivered or read) that counts as success for each step in the workflow

Receive status webhooks from the underlying Messages API for every delivery and read event triggered by the workflow

GET STARTED

Start building with Nexmo Dispatch API API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use for: Send a WhatsApp message that falls back to SMS if undelivered, Create a multi-channel failover workflow for a transactional notification, Trigger a Dispatch workflow that tries Viber first then Facebook Messenger, Set up a notification that retries on a different channel after 600 seconds

Not supported: Does not send single-channel messages directly, manage WhatsApp templates, or expose per-channel analytics — use only to define multi-channel failover workflows that delegate sending to the Messages API.

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI document for Nexmo Dispatch API, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI specification for Nexmo Dispatch API, keeping it validated and agent-ready. The Dispatch API orchestrates multi-channel message workflows on top of Nexmo's Messages API. The current template is failover: an ordered list of message attempts (for example WhatsApp, then SMS) where Dispatch automatically tries the next channel if the previous one fails immediately or does not reach the configured condition_status within a time window. The whole API is one POST endpoint that accepts a workflow definition.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Nexmo Dispatch API API for, with concrete tasks.

★ WhatsApp-to-SMS failover for transactional alerts

Businesses that prefer cheaper, richer WhatsApp delivery but cannot accept silent failures use Dispatch to define a two-step workflow: WhatsApp first with a delivered condition and a 600-second expiry, SMS second as the fallback. A single POST to / submits the whole template; Nexmo handles the retry logic and emits status webhooks for both legs.

POST to / with a failover workflow containing a WhatsApp message step (condition delivered, expiry 600) and an SMS fallback step using a JWT bearer token.

Read-receipt-driven OTP escalation

For 2FA where the user must actually open the message, the workflow can require a read condition on the first step. If WhatsApp does not register a read event within the expiry window, Dispatch falls over to SMS automatically. The whole behaviour is described in one workflow body without the application running its own retry timers.

POST to / with template=failover, step 1 WhatsApp with condition=read and failover_expiry=300, step 2 SMS, then poll status webhook for the dispatch_uuid.

Agent-driven cross-channel notification

An AI agent that needs reliable user contact can issue a single Dispatch call instead of orchestrating multiple Messages API sends. Through Jentic, the agent searches for 'send a multi-channel failover message', loads the operation schema, and submits the full workflow body in one call — no retry or timer logic in the agent.

Search Jentic for 'send a failover multichannel message', load POST / on the Dispatch API, and execute it with a two-step workflow targeting the user's WhatsApp number then SMS number.

Key Endpoints

1 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for nexmo dispatch api, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

Create a failover workflow that sends across multiple channels in order

POST

Create a failover workflow that sends across multiple channels in order

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Nexmo basic credentials and JWT signing keys are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents trigger workflow creation through scoped execution; the JWT is minted server-side per call so the private key never reaches the agent.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search by intent (e.g., 'send a failover multichannel message') and Jentic returns the POST / operation with its full workflow schema, including the failover template's nested fields.

Time to first call

Direct integration: 1-2 days to wire up JWT signing, status webhooks, and error handling. Through Jentic: under an hour — search, load, execute one workflow.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Complementary

Nexmo Messages API

Underlying single-channel send API that Dispatch orchestrates across multiple channels

Use Messages directly when only one channel is needed; use Dispatch when failover across channels is required.

Alternative

Twilio API

Twilio's Notify and Conversations services offer comparable multi-channel orchestration

Choose Twilio when the application already uses Twilio Studio or Notify and a single vendor is preferred over Nexmo's failover template.

Alternative

MessageBird SMS API

MessageBird's Flow Builder provides drag-and-drop multi-channel routing as an alternative to Dispatch's JSON template

Pick MessageBird if a visual flow editor is more important than programmatic single-call orchestration.

FAQs

Specific to using Nexmo Dispatch API API through Jentic.

Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for Nexmo Dispatch API?

Vonage (formerly Nexmo) does not publish an OpenAPI specification. Jentic generates and maintains this spec so that AI agents and developers can call Nexmo Dispatch API via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started at https://app.jentic.com/sign-up.

What authentication does the Nexmo Dispatch API use?

Either HTTP basic auth using api_key and api_secret or HTTP bearer with a JWT signed by an application's private key. Through Jentic both options are stored encrypted and selected per request, so the agent never handles the raw secret or the JWT signing flow.

What workflow templates are supported by Dispatch?

The current 0.3.4 spec exposes the failover template only — an ordered list of channel attempts where each step has a condition (delivered or read) and a failover_expiry in seconds. New templates would appear as additional shapes in the same POST / request body.

What are the rate limits for the Nexmo Dispatch API?

The OpenAPI spec does not declare rate limits. Account-level throttles apply, and because Dispatch fans out to the underlying Messages API, the per-channel limits of WhatsApp, SMS, Viber and Messenger also apply to the workflow.

How do I create a WhatsApp-to-SMS failover workflow through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'send a failover multichannel message', load the POST / operation on the Dispatch API, and execute it with template=failover and a workflow array containing your WhatsApp step and SMS fallback step.

How do I know which step of the workflow actually delivered?

Dispatch returns a dispatch_uuid on creation. Status webhooks from the Messages API fire for each leg of the workflow with the message_uuid linked to that dispatch_uuid, letting the application track which channel succeeded.