Show the typing indicator

Shows the RCS typing bubble on the recipient's handset while you work out what to say.

Built for agents rather than scripted flows. A flow replies in milliseconds and needs nothing; an agent calling a model takes seconds, and to the person holding the phone those seconds look identical to nothing happening.

Send it immediately before the work, not on a timer. RCS has no "stopped typing" event — the indicator expires by itself after a few seconds and your next message clears it. If the work turns out to be fast, skip it: a bubble that fades with no message behind it reads worse than no bubble at all.

Never billed, and never fatal. A conversation on SMS, a backend that cannot send events, and a rejection from Google all answer 200 with ok: false and a reason. The correct outcome of a broken typing indicator is a message with no bubble, not a caller who thinks their conversation is broken — so there is no need to branch on channel before calling it.

Works on a sandbox key, where it answers simulated: true and reaches no handset.