Key Takeaways
- Gateway-server runbooks cover the control plane: queue drain, pairing health, DLR relay, and who pauses sends — not a second API catalog.
- Do not rewrite the API HTTPS runbook or the Android-app OEM how-to. Hub F owns this spoke.
- Developer Center owns live request fields. The runbook owns sequence, owners, and rollback.
- Name device-offline, OEM sleep, and operator voucher as first-class failures.
- A runbook without a last-drilled date is fiction.
- You bring the Android and operator SMS credit. Service pricing is devices plus send volume.
The server runbook is the relay packet
Gateway server how to document runbooks is the on-call packet for the control plane in front of your SIMs: how messages leave the queue, what pairing-unhealthy means, how delivery reports get relayed, and who is allowed to pause bulk. It is not a second copy of the Android SMS gateway server guide and not a field-for-field API mirror.
If the person holding the pager cannot say whether the queue is blocked by the phone or by the server, you published a wiki page, not a runbook.
API and app runbooks are other spokes
The HTTPS client packet lives on API how to document runbooks. Phone OEM, battery exemptions, and pairing taps live on the Android-app how-to. This Hub F spoke is the middle: cloud relay versus local HTTP, process restarts, and the health signals the queue should fail closed on. Keep live request shapes in Developer Center.
Pages the control plane must name
| Failure | Looks like | First move | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Device offline | Queue depth climbs, DLR silent | Offline checklist | Phone ops |
| Relay down | API 5xx / pairing healthy but no dequeue | Process + TLS, then status page | Platform |
| Voucher empty | Accepted locally, operator reject | USSD / prepaid top-up — not a code deploy | Finance / SIM owner |
| Allowance pause | Free/Developer stop sending | Upgrade path on device and SMS volume pricing | Account owner |
Free is 1 device, 300 SMS lifetime, 300 contacts. Do not write a load-test runbook that burns the lifetime cap. Starter / Professional / Business uncap platform volume and still cap devices at 2 / 5 / 15.
Owners for queue, phones, vouchers
Write names, not roles. Who drains bulk when OTP is starving. Who holds the spare charged handset. Who buys operator airtime — we do not. Isolate promotional traffic from authentication on separate device pools so a campaign cannot sit on the same radio as login codes.
Drill the doc
Last-drilled date on the first page. Unplug the phone, watch the queue, follow the packet. If step two says “check the dashboard” and nobody can find pairing health, the drill failed. Canary a staff number after every OEM update and after every relay change.
Cost
You bring a working Android and operator SMS credit. We meter devices plus platform send volume. Failed retries still burn carrier airtime. Refunds cover plan fees, not vouchers. Starter, Professional, and Business list Unlimited SMS as platform send volume; that is not unmetered carrier SMS.
Checklist
- Hub F cornerstone linked, not rewritten.
- API and app runbook spokes cross-linked, not cloned.
- Queue vs radio vs voucher failures named with owners.
- Developer Center linked for live fields.
- Last-drilled date present.
- OTP pool isolated from marketing.
- Spare charged device named.
- Free/Developer pause documented; Starter+ device caps documented.
Next steps
Return to the server guide, pair a handset in the device setup guide, and confirm APIs in Developer Center. Rotation of radios for volume is the sibling how-to, not this page.
Related product pages
Jump to the live product docs for this topic—not another long-form article.
- SMS API documentationLive endpoint reference
- device and SMS volume pricingPlans and allowances
- Android SMS gateway product guideDefinition, product, and how to buy
- download the Android gateway appGet the APK
