LINQ CLI
an iMessage API you can use from the command line
Details
- External ID
- 48313364
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- LINQ CLI
- Website domain
- linqapp.com
- Launched
- May 28, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 8
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.4894991922455573
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Description
Hey my name is Patrick, I’m a co-founder and CTO of Linq. We’re an API for sending and receiving iMessages (it does RCS/SMS too). It can do everything you can manually in iMessage (typing indicators, reactions, delivery emphasis, FindMy etc.) Our main customers are companies building conversational agents but we’re wanting to make it easier for developers to get started for free.To do that we built a CLI that lets you manage up to 20 contacts and gives you full API access for free. I’d love your feedback so we can keep improving it. Install via npm using: npm install -g @linqapp/cliRecently, I used the CLI to connect my Claude bot to WeWork & iMessage and haven’t had to use the WeWork app in a few weeks to book rooms.Github: https://github.com/linq-team/linq-cli Landing page: https://linqapp.com/cliThree constraints you should know about: 1. The free tier requires inbound-first (ie someone must text you before you text them) and has a limit of 20 contacts. This is to avoid spam. 2. The line is shared. This means a few other people will be using the same phone number as you, none of our paid production lines work this way. If you're testing enterprise grade our sandbox mirrors production, but has a 7 day time limit. The CLI is shared because there is a real infrastructure cost to us and we want to give this away for free. 3. We require an email to sign up. To avoid spam + our infrastructure cost.To be precise about "open source", it's the CLI. The whole client is in that repo, so you can read exactly what leaves your machine. The backend that delivers messages is closed.
Enrichment
- Theme
- niche social and community platforms
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- imessage api for command line
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Apple does not provide an iMessage API; building a programmatic service requires reverse-engineering Apple's proprietary push protocols or operating large-scale physical Apple hardware farms.
What it would actually take: The backend requires either reverse-engineering Apple's proprietary APNs and IDS cryptographic protocols (handling fair-play authentication, push tokens, and end-to-end encryption) or running high-density physical Mac mini farms with automated Apple ID lifecycle management. Layered on top is enterprise CPaaS infrastructure to handle carrier-grade RCS/SMS routing, anti-fraud rate limiting, and SOC 2 security controls.
Discussion
5 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: LINQ
Concerns raised: Steep setup fees and high minimum costs ($250/month), Business-only pricing, not available for personal use, CLI approach less practical than OpenAPI spec integration
Feature requests: SMS/text messaging capability
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 46 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #19 of 47 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 156 days after the earliest competitor.
- iMessage is the best interface, so I built TypeScript SDK for it · hn · 2026-07-18 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.46
- CLI-use · hn · 2026-04-21 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- Mcp2cli · hn · 2026-03-09 · 146 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- Clify · hn · 2026-04-07 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- ChatDrop · ph · 2026-09-17 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Stella Foster · hn · 2026-03-25 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Notavia · ph · 2026-09-15 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- I built a tool that turns any API into a CLI for agents · hn · 2026-03-01 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.38
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a dev tools tool for Sales yet.