# Verify Ruby on Rails Quickstart

With just a few lines of code, your Rails application can verify phone numbers and add an additional layer of security with Twilio Verify.

This Ruby Verify Quickstart will teach you how to do this using our [Verify REST API](/docs/verify/api), the Twilio Ruby SDK, and [Ruby on Rails](https://rubyonrails.org) to ease development.

In this Quickstart, you will learn how to:

1. Sign up for Twilio
2. Set up your development environment
3. Send your first SMS phone verification
4. Check verification codes

> \[!NOTE]
>
> Short on time? Spin up a low-code, fully editable verification demo in **less than 2 minutes** using [Twilio's Code Exchange and Quick Deploy here](https://www.twilio.com/code-exchange/one-time-passcode-verification-otp).

## Sign up for Twilio

If you already have a Twilio account, you're all set here! Feel free to jump to the next step.

Before you can send an SMS from Python, you'll need to [sign up for a Twilio account](https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio) or sign into your existing account.

You can sign up for a free Twilio trial account [here](https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio).

* When you sign up, you'll be asked to verify your personal phone number. This helps Twilio verify your identity and also allows you to send test verification messages to your phone from your Twilio account while in trial mode. **This phone verification step is exactly what you'll learn how to build in this tutorial!**
* Once you verify your number, you'll be asked to create a project. For the sake of this tutorial, you can click on the "Learn and Explore" template. Give your project a name, or just click "skip remaining steps" to continue with the default.
* Once you get through the project creation flow, you'll arrive at your project dashboard in the [Twilio Console](https://www.twilio.com/console). This is where you'll be able to access your Account SID, authentication token, create a verification service, and more.

### Do I need a phone number?

If you've sent SMS with Twilio in the past, you might remember needing to buy a phone number. With Twilio Verify, we take care of that for you! The Verify API selects the best routes for quickly and reliably delivering verification codes globally.

### Create a Verify Service

Verify uses Services for configuration. To send a Verify API request you will need both your Twilio Credentials and a Service SID. You can create and update a Service in two ways:

1. In the [Verify Console](https://www.twilio.com/console/verify/services)
2. With the [Verify API](/docs/verify/api/service)

Services can be used to edit the name (which shows up in the message template), set the code length (4-10 characters), enable settings like the "do not share warning" and more.

Now that you have a Twilio account and a verification service, you can start writing some code! To make things even easier, we'll next install Twilio's official helper for Ruby applications.

## Install Ruby and the Twilio SDK

If you've gone through one of our other Ruby Quickstarts already and have Ruby and the Twilio Ruby SDK installed, you can skip this step and get straight to sending your first verification.

To start a phone verification, you'll need to have Ruby and the Twilio Ruby SDK installed.

### Install Ruby

If you're using Mac, you probably already have Ruby installed but an older version. You can use [homebrew](https://brew.sh) to install the latest version using the following command:

```bash
brew install ruby
```

If you're on a Linux machine, you can install it using your default package manager, for example for Ubuntu:

```bash
sudo apt-get install ruby-full
```

For other distributions, you can find the command in [this listing](https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/installation/).

You can check if Ruby is installed and which version by opening up a terminal and running the following command:

```bash
ruby --version
```

You should see something like:

```csharp
$ ruby --version
ruby 2.6.3p62 (2019-04-16 revision 67580) [x86_64-darwin18]
```

Windows users can use [RubyInstaller](https://rubyinstaller.org).

Twilio's Ruby SDK supports older versions of Ruby. But for this quickstart, we recommend using at least Ruby 2.3 for compatibility with some of the dependencies used.

Send an SMS verification code

```ruby
# Download the helper library from https://www.twilio.com/docs/ruby/install
require 'twilio-ruby'

# Find your Account SID and Auth Token at twilio.com/console
# and set the environment variables. See http://twil.io/secure
account_sid = ENV['TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID']
auth_token = ENV['TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN']
@client = Twilio::REST::Client.new(account_sid, auth_token)

verification = @client
               .verify
               .v2
               .services('VAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa')
               .verifications
               .create(
                 channel: 'sms',
                 to: '+15017122661'
               )

puts verification.status
```

```json
{
  "sid": "VEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "service_sid": "VAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "account_sid": "ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "to": "+15017122661",
  "channel": "sms",
  "status": "pending",
  "valid": false,
  "date_created": "2015-07-30T20:00:00Z",
  "date_updated": "2015-07-30T20:00:00Z",
  "lookup": {},
  "amount": null,
  "payee": null,
  "send_code_attempts": [
    {
      "time": "2015-07-30T20:00:00Z",
      "channel": "SMS",
      "attempt_sid": "VLaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
    }
  ],
  "sna": null,
  "url": "https://verify.twilio.com/v2/Services/VAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Verifications/VEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
}
```

Check a verification code

```ruby
# Download the helper library from https://www.twilio.com/docs/ruby/install
require 'twilio-ruby'

# Find your Account SID and Auth Token at twilio.com/console
# and set the environment variables. See http://twil.io/secure
account_sid = ENV['TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID']
auth_token = ENV['TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN']
@client = Twilio::REST::Client.new(account_sid, auth_token)

verification_check = @client
                     .verify
                     .v2
                     .services('VAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa')
                     .verification_checks
                     .create(
                       to: '+15017122661',
                       code: '123456'
                     )

puts verification_check.status
```

```json
{
  "sid": "VEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "service_sid": "VAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "account_sid": "ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "to": "+15017122661",
  "channel": "sms",
  "status": "approved",
  "valid": true,
  "amount": null,
  "payee": null,
  "sna_attempts_error_codes": [],
  "date_created": "2015-07-30T20:00:00Z",
  "date_updated": "2015-07-30T20:00:00Z"
}
```

## Clone and Setup the Verification Application

Start by [cloning our Rails repository.](https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/verify-v2-quickstart-rails)

```bash
git clone git@github.com:TwilioDevEd/verify-v2-quickstart-rails.git
```

If you don't have git installed or prefer to download the source code you can [grab a zip file of the project here](https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/verify-v2-quickstart-rails/archive/master.zip).

### Set up your environment and install dependencies

You'll need to have [bundler](https://bundler.io) installed in your Ruby environment, simply run the command:

```bash
gem install bundler
```

Once it's installed, you'll be able to install all the quickstart's dependencies by navigating to its directory and running bundler:

```bash
cd verify-v2-quickstart-rails

bundle install
```

Copy `.env.example` to `.env`. This is where we'll store sensitive data in [environment variables.](https://www.twilio.com/blog/how-to-set-environment-variables.html)

```bash
cp .env.example .env
```

The application will automatically read and load those environments variables from the `.env` file. Finally, all that's left to do is run the migrations which will prepare an SQLite database automatically for you and start the development server:

```bash
rails db:migrate
rails server
```

If your credentials are set up correctly you'll soon get a message that the app is up!

## Use the Rails Twilio verify demo

Go to `http://localhost:3000/register`. It should display a registration form that resembles this:

![Twilio Verify registration form with fields for username, password, phone number, and verification method.](https://docs-resources.prod.twilio.com/0cafbb154caee25509e003385b6124963b16a461280690eae35720562911109f.png)

Enter your phone number and choose which channel to request verification over. Finally hit the green `Sign Up` button and wait. You'll either receive a phone call or an SMS with the verification token. If you requested a phone call, as an additional security feature you may need to interact to proceed (the call will tell you to enter a number on the phone keypad).

Enter the token into the Verification entry form and click 'Verify':

![Verification form with code entry field and verify button.](https://docs-resources.prod.twilio.com/045846c5c5806563af50a437f19fd85e07b716e542662ff93d6ad1305a9efc13.png)

And with that, your demo app is protected with Twilio's Phone Verification!

## What's Next?

Your demo app is now keeping fraudulent users from registering with your business and polluting your database. Next, check out all of the variables and options available to you in the [Verify API Reference](/docs/verify/api).

After that, check out adding additional verification channels supported by the Verify API like:

* [Email](/docs/verify/email)
* [TOTP](/docs/glossary/totp)
* [Push](/docs/verify/push)

> \[!NOTE]
>
> Lastly, to protect your service against fraud, view our guidance on [Preventing Toll Fraud](/docs/verify/preventing-toll-fraud) when using Verify.