Put the full activation lifecycle in your test workflow.

Authentication

Generate a key in Dashboard → Developers and store it in a server-side secret store. The vo_live_ value appears once. Pass it as an authorization header, never in a public browser URL:

Authorization: Bearer vo_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The pay-as-you-go rate is 120 requests per minute. Read /api/v1/balance for the limit currently assigned to your account, and back off on a 429 response.

Endpoints

Method	Path	Purpose
GET	/api/v1/balance	Available USD cents and active request quota
GET	/api/v1/countries	Country identifiers and calling prefixes
GET	/api/v1/services?country=us	Current route selection for one country
GET	/api/v1/price?service=telegram&country=gb	Quote the exact app-country pair
POST	/api/v1/activations	Open an order with {"service","country"}
GET	/api/v1/activations/{id}	Read the latest state, SMS and code
POST	/api/v1/activations/{id}/retry	Ask the same order for another SMS when allowed
POST	/api/v1/activations/{id}/finish	Mark a completed code flow finished
POST	/api/v1/activations/{id}/cancel	Request an unused cancellation; check the later refund state
GET	/api/v1/numbers	List the account's renewable lines
GET	/api/v1/numbers/{id}/messages?since_id=0	Read the line's inbox after a message ID

Activation statuses

An order can begin as pending, move to received and then finished, or end as cancelled or expired. A terminal status alone does not prove money was returned. Inspect the separate refunded field and allow for provider reconciliation.

Errors

Handle the machine-readable error.code, rather than matching the English message. Common cases are invalid_api_key (401), insufficient_funds (402 with shortfall_c), out_of_stock, too_early or no_retry (409), account_locked (423), and rate_limited (429).

Node.js example

const API = "https://verifyorbit.com/api/v1";
const H = { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.VERIFYORBIT_KEY}`, "Content-Type": "application/json" };
const act = await (await fetch(`${API}/activations`, { method: "POST", headers: H,
  body: JSON.stringify({ service: "telegram", country: "us" }) })).json();
for (;;) {
  const a = await (await fetch(`${API}/activations/${act.id}`, { headers: H })).json();
  if (a.status === "received") { console.log(a.code); break; }
  if (["cancelled", "expired", "failed"].includes(a.status)) throw new Error("Order ended; check refunded status");
  await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 4000));
}

More: how SMS verification works and what to check when a code does not arrive.