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cURL

Send your first email with nothing but curl: export an API key, POST a message, and GET it back to watch it deliver. This is the raw HTTP flow; everything the SDKs do starts here.

1. Export your API key

Create a key in the dashboard under Developers → API keys (Send your first email walks through it), then export it:
Codebeispiel
export BIRD_API_KEY="bk_us1_..."
The region prefix picks your API host: bk_us1_ keys call https://us1.platform.bird.com, bk_eu1_ keys call https://eu1.platform.bird.com. The snippets below use us1; swap the host if your key says otherwise.

2. Send an email

POST to /v1/email/messages, sending from Bird's shared onboarding domain to the delivered@messagebird.dev sandbox address: no domain verification, no real mailbox needed.
Codebeispiel
curl -X POST https://us1.platform.bird.com/v1/email/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BIRD_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "from": "onboarding@messagebird.dev",
    "to": ["delivered@messagebird.dev"],
    "subject": "Hello from Bird",
    "html": "<p>My first Bird email.</p>"
  }'
The API responds with 202 immediately: Bird has accepted the email and delivers it asynchronously. The *_count fields track your recipients through the delivery states; right now one recipient is accepted and none are delivered:
Codebeispiel
{
  "id": "em_01ky7ma8y2es1s2akzk53tmjn0",
  "status": "accepted",
  "category": "marketing",
  "from": { "email": "onboarding@messagebird.dev" },
  "to": [{ "email": "delivered@messagebird.dev" }],
  "subject": "Hello from Bird",
  "accepted_count": 1,
  "processed_count": 0,
  "delivered_count": 0,
  "deferred_count": 0,
  "bounced_count": 0,
  "complained_count": 0,
  "rejected_count": 0,
  "open_count": 0,
  "click_count": 0,
  "track_opens": true,
  "track_clicks": true,
  "created_at": "2026-07-23T13:58:20.866Z"
}
Raw HTTP has no SDK generating an idempotency key for you: if you retry a POST after a timeout, add an Idempotency-Key: <your-unique-key> header so the retry replays the original result instead of sending twice. Idempotency has the full semantics.

3. Watch it deliver

GET the message by its em_ ID and watch the status move from accepted through processed to delivered:
Codebeispiel
curl https://us1.platform.bird.com/v1/email/messages/em_01ky7ma8y2es1s2akzk53tmjn0 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BIRD_API_KEY"
Because the recipient is the delivered@messagebird.dev sandbox address, delivery is guaranteed: the message flows through Bird's real pipeline but never touches a real mailbox.

Next steps