Go · Gin

Send your first email from a Gin application in three steps: install the SDK, add a route that sends, and run it.

1. Install

Codebeispiel

go get github.com/messagebird/bird-sdk-go

The SDK requires Go 1.24+. Grab an API key from Developers → API keys in the dashboard and export it — the region is inferred from the key's bk_us1_ / bk_eu1_ prefix, so there's nothing else to configure:

Codebeispiel

export BIRD_API_KEY="bk_us1_..."

2. Send

Create main.go with a route that sends through Bird's shared onboarding domain — no domain verification needed:

Codebeispiel

package main

import (
	"errors"
	"log"
	"net/http"
	"os"

	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
	bird "github.com/messagebird/bird-sdk-go"
	"github.com/messagebird/bird-sdk-go/option"
)

func main() {
	client, err := bird.NewClient(option.WithAPIKey(os.Getenv("BIRD_API_KEY")))
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	r := gin.Default()
	r.POST("/send", func(c *gin.Context) {
		msg, err := client.Email.Send(c.Request.Context(), bird.EmailSendParams{
			From:    "onboarding@messagebird.dev",
			To:      []string{"delivered@messagebird.dev"},
			Subject: "Hello from Bird",
			HTML:    "<p>My first Bird email.</p>",
		})
		if err != nil {
			var apiErr *bird.APIError
			if errors.As(err, &apiErr) {
				c.JSON(apiErr.StatusCode, gin.H{"error": apiErr.Error()})
				return
			}
			c.JSON(http.StatusInternalServerError, gin.H{"error": err.Error()})
			return
		}
		c.JSON(http.StatusAccepted, msg)
	})

	log.Fatal(r.Run(":3000"))
}

Every Send is automatically idempotent: the SDK generates one idempotency key per call and reuses it across retries, so transient failures (timeouts, 429s, 5xx) are retried without ever double-delivering.

3. Try it

Codebeispiel

go run . &
curl -X POST localhost:3000/send

The API responds with 202 — Bird has accepted the email and delivers it asynchronously:

Codebeispiel

{
  "id": "em_019c1930687b7bfa8a1b2c3d4e5f6789",
  "status": "accepted"
}

Because the recipient is the delivered@messagebird.dev sandbox address, delivery is guaranteed — fetch the message by its em_ ID with client.Email.Get and watch the status move to delivered.

Next steps

Go SDK reference — every method, param, and error type.
Send your first email — the same flow with curl and the dashboard.
Sending domains — verify your own domain for production sending.
Email API reference — the full request and response schema.