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Africa ussd development

Skill BuilderCed/agent-skills/skills/africa/africa-ussd-development

31 cross-platform AI agent skills for regulated industries & underserved markets. EU compliance (AI Act, NIS2, DORA, GDPR), French professional (accounting, tax, notary, real estate), security audit, agent evaluation, Africa mobile money, offline-first.

Install

npx -y skills add BuilderCed/agent-skills --skill africa-ussd-development

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What its author says it does

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Build USSD applications for African markets — menu design, session management, multi-operator integration, and user experience patterns for feature phones.

The file declares its own license as MIT. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

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Africa USSD Development

DISCLAIMER: USSD regulations vary by country and operator. Verify with local telecom authorities.

When to Use

Building apps for feature phone users (no internet required)
Creating mobile money menus or services
Designing interactive text-based interfaces
Integrating with African telecom operators

USSD Fundamentals

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) = real-time text session between phone and server. No internet needed. Works on ANY phone (feature phone or smartphone).

Key Constraints

Constraint	Limit
Message length	182 characters max per screen
Session timeout	120-180 seconds (operator-dependent)
Input	Numeric only (0-9, *, #)
Navigation	No back button (must design "0 for back")
Connectivity	Real-time (not store-and-forward like SMS)

Menu Design Patterns

Basic Menu

Welcome to MyService
1. Check balance
2. Send money
3. Buy airtime
4. My account
0. Exit

Pagination (Long Lists)

Select product (1/3):
1. Rice 5kg - 2500 CFA
2. Sugar 1kg - 800 CFA
3. Oil 1L - 1200 CFA
98. Next page
0. Back

Confirmation Pattern

Send 5000 CFA to Amadou (77X XX XX)?
1. Confirm
2. Cancel

Input Collection

Enter amount (CFA):

Then validate: numeric, min/max, divisible by denomination.

Session Architecture

Phone → *123# → Operator → Your Server (HTTP POST)
                                ↓
                         Process + respond
                                ↓
                    Response text (182 chars max)
                                ↓
                         Phone displays

Server Response Format

Most operators expect:

CON prefix = continue session (expect more input)
END prefix = close session

CON Welcome\n1. Balance\n2. Transfer

END Your balance is 15,000 CFA. Thank you.

Multi-Operator Integration

Provider	Coverage	API
Africa's Talking	20+ countries	REST, webhooks
Twilio	Limited Africa	REST
Infobip	15+ countries	REST
Direct operator	Per country	SMPP/HTTP varies

Africa's Talking (Recommended for Multi-Country)

POST callback URL receives:
- sessionId: unique per session
- phoneNumber: caller MSISDN
- text: accumulated input (separated by *)
- serviceCode: your USSD shortcode

UX Best Practices

Max 3 levels deep — users lose context after 3 menus
Always offer exit — "0. Exit" on every screen
Confirm destructive actions — money transfers, cancellations
Short messages — 182 chars including options
Numeric shortcuts — power users dial full path: *123*1*2#
Language selection first — if multilingual market
Error messages clear — "Invalid choice. Try again:" not "Error 422"
Session state on server — phone has no state

Testing

Test with actual phones (emulators miss operator quirks)
Test session timeout handling
Test on slow networks (USSD can lag 3-5s per round trip)
Test with different operators in target market

What This Skill Does NOT Do

Does not provide USSD shortcodes (apply through operator)
Does not handle SMS (different protocol)
Does not manage telecom operator relationships
Does not cover IVR (voice-based menus)

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