# Your own web address Every project is reachable at `.hatchik.com` from the moment it is live. If you own a web address of your own, you can point it at the same site at no extra cost. ## Setting it up Tell Claude: "point mysite.com at my live site". Or sign in at `https://app.hatchik.com`, open the project and go to Domains. You get back one DNS record, like this: ``` Type: A Name: @ Value: ``` Use the value Hatchik shows you for your project. Do not copy an IP address out of any guide, including this one. **About that Name box.** `@` is how nearly every control panel — GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, IONOS, Squarespace, 123-reg and the rest — writes "the address itself". They add your domain on for you. If you type the whole address in there instead, you end up with a record for `mysite.com.mysite.com`, which leads nowhere and looks exactly like something being broken. For the www version the Name is just `www`. A small number of panels want the full name; if yours shows the whole address already filled in, leave it as it is. Add the record wherever your address's DNS is managed — the registrar, or whoever runs your DNS if you moved it. Hatchik tells you both records to add: the address itself and its `www` version, so whichever one somebody types, they land in the right place. ## How long it takes **Minutes.** Usually one to five. The "it can take 24 to 48 hours" line everybody repeats is about changing your **nameservers** — a different, much slower thing that Hatchik never asks you to do. Changing one record, with the nameservers left alone, is governed only by how long that record says it can be remembered for, which is normally a few minutes. If the address never had a record before, it is often instant. **You do not have to sit and watch.** Once you have added the record, Hatchik checks the address every minute and emails you the moment it starts working. If it still is not right twenty minutes later, you get an email saying what is wrong, in plain words, with the exact thing to change. ## The states - **Waiting for DNS** — Hatchik cannot see your record yet. Either it has not been added, or it has just been added and has not come through, or something is wrong (see below). - **Issuing** — the record works and the certificate is being issued. This is usually under a minute. It is normal to see a browser warning during it. - **Old IPv6 record** — see below. This one does not fix itself. - **Live** — the address is serving your site over HTTPS. Hatchik renews the certificate for you from then on. Ask Claude "what's the status of my domain?" at any time. ## If it does not start working Five things cause almost all of it. **1. An old "AAAA" record from your previous host.** If this address used to point at Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Cloudflare or most other hosts, there is very likely a second address record still sitting on it — the type called **AAAA**. It wins over the one you just added, so visitors and the security check both go to the old place, and the padlock can never finish. Delete the AAAA record. It is in the same list as the record you added, shown as type "AAAA". Leave your new A record alone. It sorts itself out a minute or two afterwards. **2. Cloudflare's orange cloud.** If your DNS is at Cloudflare, the record must be set to **DNS only** — the grey cloud, not the orange one. Proxied records send visitors to Cloudflare instead of Hatchik, and the certificate can never be issued. Open the record in Cloudflare and click the orange cloud until it turns grey. **3. The record is at the wrong place.** If you bought the address at one company and later moved its DNS to another, the record has to go where the DNS is now, not where you bought it. Check which nameservers your address uses; that is the company that needs the record. **4. The old site is still in the record.** If the address used to point somewhere else, there is an existing A record with the old value. Change that record, rather than adding a second one. Two A records means half your visitors land on the old site. **5. The Name box has the whole address in it.** See above. If you can see a record for `mysite.com.mysite.com`, that is this. Change its name to `@`. If none of those, open the record at your DNS provider and compare it character by character with what Hatchik gave you: the type must be `A`, the Name must be what Hatchik showed you, and the value must be exactly the IP address on your project's Domains page. ## "That address is already in use" An address can only serve one site on Hatchik, so it can only be attached in one place. If you are told it is already in use, there are three ways through and none of them involves asking anybody. - **If it is on another of your own sites**, Hatchik just moves it. You will not see this message at all. - **If it was added by mistake and never set up**, the claim is released automatically after three days, and you can add it then. Nothing has to be done to make that happen. - **If the address is yours and you do not want to wait**, prove it. Hatchik gives you a `TXT` record to add to the address. Only somebody who can edit that address's DNS settings can add it, which is exactly why it counts as proof. Add it, ask to add the address again, and it moves to your site straight away. You can delete the TXT record afterwards. If you were the one holding an address and somebody proves it is theirs, you get an email telling you so. Your site stays live at its Hatchik address; only the one web address moves. ## More than one address You can point several addresses at the same site. Adding one never removes another. Hatchik sets up the address and its `www` version together, so both work. ## Buying an address Hatchik does not sell you one. Buy it wherever you like, and keep it in your own name — it is yours, and moving it away later is your decision alone. ## Removing one Tell Claude "stop using mysite.com", or remove it under Domains on the project page. That releases the address immediately, so you (or anyone) can add it somewhere else. Your `.hatchik.com` address always keeps working, so a site is never left unreachable.