/domain

name: domain
description: "When you want to brainstorm and check available .com domains for a new project — brand naming, aftermarket pricing (HugeDomains / Afternic / Sedo / Dan), USPTO trademark screening, and social handle availability. Built on Laura Roeder's \"work backwards from availability\" method. Combines Vercel CLI, whois, Domainr, Namecheap, and agent-browser, each for what it reliably does. Workflow: budget → brainstorm → availability check → whois cross-check → price → aftermarket sweep (plus liveness probe and drop-watch) → bucket → negotiate → trademark + socials → buy. Triggers on \"/domain,\" \"find a domain,\" \"check domain availability,\" \"brainstorm a domain,\" \"what .com is available for X,\" \"domain hunt,\" \"name my project,\" \"is X.com available,\" \"aftermarket price on X.com,\" \"trademark check for X.\""
metadata:
  version: 0.2.1

/domain — Brainstorm + check available .com domains

Multi-tool workflow to find a great, affordable, available .com for a new project. Built on Laura Roeder's rule: **work backwards from what's actually available — don't fall in love with a name first** ([source](https://lauraroeder.com/how-i-nabbed-the-com-for-my-bootstrapped-startup-without-spending-a-million-bucks-6dc35c4606e9)).

Defaults to `.com` only. Only deviate (.dev, .co, .io, .ai) if the project is dev-tooling-only or the user explicitly asks.

Step 0 — Environment checks

Verify these before proceeding (surface install commands if missing, don't try to install silently):

| Tool | Check | Install if missing | |---|---|---| | Vercel CLI | `vercel whoami` | `npm i -g vercel && vercel login` | | whois | `which whois` | `brew install whois` (macOS) | | Domainr API key | `[ -n "$DOMAINR_API_KEY" ]` | Get free key at rapidapi.com/domainr/api/domainr, add to `~/.zshenv` | | Namecheap API | `[ -n "$NAMECHEAP_API_KEY" ] && [ -n "$NAMECHEAP_API_USER" ] && [ -n "$NAMECHEAP_CLIENT_IP" ]` | Enable API at ap.www.namecheap.com/settings/tools/apiaccess/, add 3 env vars, whitelist your IP |

Domainr + Namecheap are optional — the workflow degrades gracefully without them (skips the corresponding cross-check steps).

Step 1 — Set the budget

Ask: **what would you pay for a great .com on this project?** Anchor defaults:

| Budget | What it buys | |---|---| | **$0** | Only unregistered domains (rare for anything good) | | **$250–$1k** | Aftermarket sweet spot (HugeDomains is the standout — Laura found "a ton of great .com's available for less than $1k") | | **$1k–$2k** | Laura's Paperbell.com range — plenty of brandable options | | **$2k+** | Premium |

**Filter all candidates to under-budget BEFORE falling in love.**

Step 2 — Seed words for "branded" combos

Ask what the product does + the feeling/category. Brainstorm 20–40 candidate domains using these preferences (in order):

1. **Two real words mashed together** ← preferred (Helpscout, RightMessage, ConvertKit, Paperbell, Mailchimp). Easy to spell, remember, google. 2. **Prefix/suffix the bare word** — grab the .com when the bare word is taken or over budget. "I love word X, X.com is gone, what qualifier unlocks the .com?"

• **Modern prefixes (B2B SaaS feel)**: `try` (TryGamma, TryRoam), `use` (UseMotion, UseChalk), `with` (WithCove, WithFrame), `join` (JoinHomebase, JoinHonor)
• **Classic prefixes (still work)**: `get` (GetMagic, GetResponse), `go` (GoCardless, GoFundMe), `hey` (HeyMarvin, HeyHenry), `the` (TheBrowserCompany, TheDyrt — editorial vibe)
• **Dated — avoid unless intentional**: `my` (MyFitnessPal), `meet` (MeetEdgar)
• **Suffixes**: `+ly` (Calendly, Grammarly — battle-tested but reads "2015 startup"), `+ify` (Spotify, Shopify — rare, hard to land authentically), `+labs` (AI/research positioning), `+hq` / `+app` (mostly informal)
• **Watch**: trademark collision (`UseSlack.com` is a brand violation even if registrable); popular bare words often have `try/use/get/join` variants pre-grabbed by the same owner; longer URLs cost spelling-on-phone bandwidth
• **Full grid**: if the user loves a bare word, generate all `try/use/with/join/get/go/hey/the + word` and `word + ly/ify/labs/hq/app` in one shot — ~15 variants

3. **One real word, slightly modified** (Trello, Pinterest, Lyft) — fine. 4. **Made-up-sounds** (Sunsama, Besedky) — only as fallback. Notoriously hard to remember. 5. **Common single-word objects** (Clubhouse, Spoke, Blush, Finder) — AVOID. Ungoogleable, .com always taken, collides with other products.

Surface a numbered candidate list before checking — don't burn cycles checking obvious losers.

Step 3 — Primary availability check (Vercel CLI)

Use `vercel domains check` for availability and `vercel domains price` for registrar quotes. Loop candidates:

for domain in candidate1.com candidate2.com candidate3.com; do
  echo -n "$domain: "
  vercel domains check "$domain" 2>&1 | grep -E "available|not available|Error" || echo "checking..."
done

For pricing on the candidates that came back available:

vercel domains price candidate1.com candidate2.com candidate3.com

For a single deeper check on a taken domain (registrar status, expiration, nameservers if the domain is already Vercel-managed):

vercel domains inspect candidate.com

**TLD reliability**: Vercel CLI is rock-solid for `.com` and most gTLDs, but returns errors for `.ai`, `.dev`, `.io`, `.app` (Vercel doesn't sell those registrar-side). Skip Step 3 for non-.com candidates and go straight to Step 4.

Step 4 — Cross-check with `whois`

Ground truth for registration status. **Query the right server per TLD** — pinning `-h whois.verisign-grs.com` to a non-.com produces silent false negatives.

**Classification order matters** (stolen from [unclaimed](https://github.com/iannuttall/unclaimed)): check for REGISTERED signals *first*, then available signals. A parked domain's whois/lander can contain "this domain is available for sale" — grepping for "available" first turns a tak