The Domains feature enables you to host your Shipcode site on a custom white label domain. This provides a professional and branded experience for your users by allowing you to replace the default Shipcode host domain with your own custom URL.

The core mechanism of this feature is to trigger the Shipcode platform to use the Acme protocol to automatically issue a TLS certificate for your custom domain, ensuring that your connection is secure (HTTPS).

Benefits of Custom Domains

• Allows a user-friendly, branded URL (e.g., yourcompany.com) instead of the default Shipcode host domain.
• Provides clear, custom domain names for your lower environments (e.g., staging.yourcompany.com).

Setting Up a Custom Domain 

Setting up a custom domain is a chronological, multi-step process that works in conjunction with your Publishing Environments and requires configuration in your third-party DNS settings.

Retrieve the Shipcode Host Domain

1. Navigate to Publishing Environments within your Project Settings.
2. Click Edit Environments in the upper right-hand corner.
3. Click on the domain name for the environment you wish to set up (Draft, Staging, or Production).
4. Copy the domain URL provided. This URL will serve as the Target Name in your DNS settings.

Configure Your DNS

1. Log in to your DNS provider (e.g., GoDaddy, Hover, or another name server).
2. Create a new CNAME record. A CNAME record is a key-value pair that acts as an alias or pointer.
3. In the Host Name field, enter the custom domain you wish to use (e.g., www.example.com or staging.example.com).
4. In the Target Name field, paste the domain URL you copied from Shipcode in Step 4 above.

Register the Domain in Shipcode

1. Navigate to the Domains settings page in Shipcode.
2. Click Register Domain.
3. Input the name of the CNAME you just created in your DNS (e.g., www.example.com).

Within approximately five minutes, the TLS certificate will be issued. You can confirm the successful setup by navigating to your new custom domain in a browser and verifying that the connection is secure (HTTPS).

📍📍📍 Note 📍📍📍

To set up an Apex domain (a domain without the www. prefix, such as example.com), you must contact the Shipcode team for assistance.