SMS Channel

Norq compiles SMS templates from Markdown to plain text with automatic segment counting and encoding detection -- GSM-7 (standard ASCII, 160 chars/segment) vs UCS-2 (Unicode, 70 chars/segment).

Pipeline: Markdown -> AST (parse tree) -> plain text + segment count + encoding detection

Template file

sms.md -- always Markdown mode. Native JSON is not supported for SMS.

Frontmatter

---
enabled: true
---

Field	Required	Description
`enabled`	No	`true` (default) or `false`. Disables the channel.

SMS has no subject or other channel-specific frontmatter fields.

Directive compilation

Directive	SMS output
`:::header`	Ignored
`:::footer`	Appended after a blank line
`:::action`	"Label: url" plain text
`:::callout`	Rendered as plain text (no styling)
`:::hero`	Ignored
`:::fields`	Plain text lines ("Key: Value")
`:::media`	URL as plain text; ignored for non-URL content
`:::columns`	Stacked sequentially as text
`:::list`	Numbered lines
`:::highlight`	Star prefix (`⭐ text`)
`:::centered`	Plain text (no alignment)
`:::raw`	Ignored

Example

Hey {{user.first_name}}, order #{{order.id}} shipped! Track: {{tracking_url}}
 
::: footer
Reply STOP to unsubscribe.
:::

Highlight

Rendered with a star prefix to draw attention in a plain-text medium.

::: highlight
Flash sale: 30% off today only!
:::

Compiles to: ⭐ Flash sale: 30% off today only!

Compiled output

Norq produces three fields:

body: The plain text message
segments: Number of SMS segments (1 segment = 160 GSM-7 chars or 70 UCS-2 chars)
encoding: "gsm7" or "ucs2"

Example output:

{
  "body": "Hey Gaurav, order #ORD-123 shipped! Track: https://track.example.com/123\n\nReply STOP to unsubscribe.",
  "segments": 1,
  "encoding": "gsm7"
}

Segment counting

SMS messages are split into segments based on encoding:

Encoding	Single segment	Multi-segment (per segment)
GSM-7	160 characters	153 characters
UCS-2	70 characters	67 characters

GSM-7 covers ASCII letters, digits, and common punctuation. If the message contains any character outside GSM-7 (e.g., emoji, accented characters, CJK), the entire message switches to UCS-2.

Testing segment count

Use tests.yaml to enforce segment limits:

tests:
  - name: "SMS fits 1 segment"
    channel: sms
    sample: "New user"
    assert:
      sms_segments: { lte: 1 }
 
  - name: "SMS under 2 segments"
    channel: sms
    sample: "Shipped with discount"
    assert:
      sms_segments: { lte: 2 }

Best practices

Keep messages under 160 characters for a single segment (cheapest delivery)
Avoid emoji if you want GSM-7 encoding (fewer characters per segment with UCS-2)
Use {{url | truncate 30}} if URLs are long and you need to save characters
Put opt-out text in :::footer for consistent formatting
Use norq preview <name> --channel sms --terminal to see the message and segment count