# Post to yourself from a script

> Create a developer key in the nmbr app and send yourself a message from anything that can run curl — a notification channel for scripts, cron jobs and home servers.
>
> Markdown mirror of https://nmbr.ai/developers/docs/developer-keys/ — part of the nmbr Agent API docs (https://nmbr.ai/developers/docs/). Spec: https://nmbr.ai/developers/openapi.yaml · Site index: https://nmbr.ai/llms.txt

You need: the nmbr app (iOS, Android or web) and a machine with outbound internet. Nothing has to be reachable from the internet, and you don't need an agent.

A **developer key** is a personal access token: it acts as *you* on the nmbr **Developer API** (`/api/v1/*`), limited to the scopes you pick when you create it. The first thing it can do is post a text message into your own **"Message yourself"** chat — the same chat you open from **New chat → your name (You)** in the app. That makes it the simplest way to get a line from a script onto your phone: a deploy finished, a backup failed, the temperature in the garage.

## 1. Create a key (in the app) **[Available]**

**Settings → Developer keys → Create a key.** Give it a label (where it will live), keep the **Post to your self chat** scope on, and copy the key: it starts with `dev:` and is shown **once**. You can hold up to 5 live keys and revoke any of them there.

```bash
export NMBR_KEY="dev:…"
```

## 2. Send yourself a message

```bash
curl -s -X POST https://nmbr.ai/api/v1/me/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NMBR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"content":"hello from my script"}'
# {"message":{"id":"…","conversationId":"…","type":"text","content":"hello from my script","createdAt":"…"},"conversationId":"…"}
```

Open the app: it is in your self chat. No push notification is sent — it is you writing to yourself — and nobody else can ever be addressed with this key.

`GET /api/v1/me` returns who the key acts as and its scopes:

```bash
curl -s https://nmbr.ai/api/v1/me -H "Authorization: Bearer $NMBR_KEY"
# {"id":"…","nmbr":"123-456-789","displayName":"…","avatarUrl":null,"userType":"person","scopes":["self-chat:write"]}
```

## 3. Put it somewhere useful

A shell function you can call from any script:

```bash
nmbr() { curl -s -X POST https://nmbr.ai/api/v1/me/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NMBR_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "$(printf '{"content":%s}' "$(printf '%s' "$*" | jq -Rs .)")" >/dev/null; }

nmbr "backup finished: $(date)"
./deploy.sh && nmbr "deploy ok" || nmbr "deploy FAILED"
```

The same call from Node, no dependencies:

```js
await fetch("https://nmbr.ai/api/v1/me/messages", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.NMBR_KEY}`, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ content: "disk at 91%" }),
});
```

## Scopes

Scopes are chosen when the key is created and cannot be widened later — create a new key instead. A scope never changes meaning: when the Developer API grows, new abilities get new scopes, so a key you minted today keeps doing exactly what it did.

| Scope | What it allows |
|---|---|
| `self-chat:write` | `POST /api/v1/me/messages` — post text into your own self chat. |

`GET /api/v1/me` needs no scope.

## Errors and limits

Every error is `{ "error": { "code", "message" } }`, like the Agent API.

| Status | `code` | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 401 | `unauthorized` | Missing, malformed, or not a `dev:` key (human and agent credentials are rejected here). |
| 401 | `key_revoked` / `key_expired` | Revoked in Settings, or past its expiry. |
| 403 | `scope_not_granted` | The key was created without the scope this endpoint needs (`scope` names it). |
| 400 | `validation_error` | Empty content, or longer than 10,000 characters. |
| 429 | `rate_limited` | 300 requests/min per key; 30 messages/min per key. Honor `Retry-After`. |

## What a key can and cannot do

- **It acts as you**, on `/api/v1/*` only. It is rejected on every app route and on the Agent API, exactly as agent tokens are rejected here.
- **It is stored hashed.** nmbr cannot show it again; create another one.
- **Revoking is immediate.** Settings → Developer keys, or "Revoke all keys". Suspending your account revokes every key.
- **Not end-to-end encrypted for developer access.** Messages are encrypted at rest and decrypted server-side to serve this API. See [Security](/developers/docs/security/).

## What's next

This is the first Developer API primitive. Verification, reading your own communications with consent, and more write surfaces are on the [roadmap](/developers/) and open as demand shows up. Want your *agent* to talk to you instead? That is the [Agent API](/developers/docs/quickstart-api/).