---
title: "Guidance for building automatic SMS replies with Automations"
description: "The Automations and SMS docs now show how to auto-reply to an inbound SMS, check the number can send, and filter out opt-out and help keywords."
canonical: "https://bird.com/changelog/docs-update-2026-11-01-99de40f"
---

[Send messages in an automation](/docs/guides/automations/messages#sms) now documents a complete pattern for auto-replying to an inbound SMS: start from an **Incoming SMS** trigger, map the reply's recipient to the incoming sender, and choose the receiving number as the reply's sender, noting that a number can accept inbound SMS without being eligible to send outbound. It also covers using a trigger filter to scope replies to one receiving number and to exclude opt-out and help keywords, so a `STOP` or `HELP` reply doesn't trigger your general acknowledgement. The [SMS overview](/docs/guides/sms/overview) now links to this pattern as the no-code way to handle replies.

Also clarified in the same guide:

- The WhatsApp messaging step can respond to incoming messages, but built-in steps can't label a WhatsApp conversation or assign it to a teammate, that's still a dashboard action under [WhatsApp conversations](/docs/guides/whatsapp/conversations#keep-the-teams-work-organized).
- The failure path on a send step now explicitly covers sends blocked by your workspace's [send limits](/docs/guides/automations/send-limits), not just channel rejections.

## Related resources

- [Two-way SMS](/sms-api/features/two-way) (product)
- [Automations](/docs/guides/automations) (docs)
- [One-way and two-way SMS](/explained/sms/what-is-the-difference-between-one-way-and-two-way-sms) (answer)
- [Build your first integration](/learn/paths/integration) (course)