twilio error "accountSid must start with AC"

Question

const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const PORT = 3000;
require("dotenv").config();
const accountSid = process.env.TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID;
const authToken = process.env.TWILIO_TOKEN;
const client = require("twilio")(accountSid, authToken);

client.messages
  .create({
    to: process.env.NUMBER,
    from: "+18598006707",
    body: "Hello Kashif",
  })
  .then((message) => console.log(message.sid));

app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log("server is at", PORT);
});

i am getting "accountSid must start with AC" even though my TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID include AC.

TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID="ACa6213af064b**************";
TWILIO_TOKEN="b5e1f89ed92c7c5****************";
NUMBER="+91783******";

Answer 1

Can I assume the second code snippet you shared is your .env file? If so, the .env file does not support semicolons. If I put semicolons in my .env file and run your script, I get the same error as you. Try updating your .env file like this:

TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID="ACa6213af064b**************"
TWILIO_TOKEN="b5e1f89ed92c7c5****************"
NUMBER="+91783******"

Once I did that, it started working for me. To confirm whether your .env file is loaded correctly, you can try logging accountSid and other variables from process.env, and verify it matches your .env file values.