domain
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, not from a name you fell in love with\" methodology. Uses Vercel CLI + whois + Domainr API + Namecheap API + agent-browser for the pieces each tool actually reliably supports (multi-tool ensemble because no single tool covers everything cleanly). 11-step workflow: budget → brainstorm → primary availability check → whois cross-check → Domainr aggregation → Namecheap price → aftermarket sweep (+ liveness probe for parked/dead domains, drop-watch for expiring ones) → bucket → negotiate → NAME research (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.\"
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/coreyhaines31/makerskills /tmp/domain && cp -r /tmp/domain/skills/domain ~/.claude/skills/domainSKILL.md
# /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:
```bash
for domain in candidate1.com candidate2.com candidate3.com; do
echo -n "$domain: "
vercel domains check "$domain" 2>&1 | grep -E "available|not available|Error" || echo "checking..."
done
```
For pricing on the candidates that came back available:
```bash
vercel domains price candidate1.com candidate2.com candidate3.com
```
For a single deeper check on a taken domain (registrar status, expiration, nameservers if the domain is already Vercel-managed):
```bash
vercel domains inspect candidate.com
```
**TLD reliability**: Vercel CLI is rock-solid for `.com` and most gTLDs, but returns errors for `.ai`, `.dev`, `.io`, `.app` (Vercel doesn't sell those registrar-side). Skip Step 3 for non-.com candidates and go straight to Step 4.
## Step 4 — Cross-check with `whois`
Ground truth for registration status. **Query the right server per TLD** — pinning `-h whois.verisign-grs.com` to a non-.com produces silent false negatives.
**Classification order matters** (stolen from [unclaimed](https://github.com/iannuttall/unclaimed)): check for REGISTERED signals *first*, then available signals. A parked domain's whois/lander can contain "this domain is available for sale" — grepping for "available" first turns a taken name into a false positive. And **reserved ≠ available**: "is reserved", "not available for registration", "blocked for registration" all mean taken, even though RDAP often 404s these names.
- Registered signals: `creation date`, `registrar:`, `registry expiry`, `registrant`, `name server`
- Reserved signals (treat as taken): `is reserved`, `reserved by`, `not available for registration`, `blocked for registration`
- Available signals: `no match`, `not found`, `no entries found`, `no object found`, `not registered`, `available for registration`
**`.com` / `.net`** — Verisign:
```bash
for domain in candidate1.com candidate2.com; do
result=$(whois -h whois.verisign-grs.com "$domain" 2>&1)
if echo "$result" | grep -qiE "registrar:|creation date"; then
expiry=$(echo "$result" | grep -i "registry expiry" | head -1 | sed 's/.*: //')
echo "$domain → TAKEN (expirWhen you want to pressure-test a potential new business, product, or side project against the serial-founder filter. Not \"marketing ideas for a product\" (that's marketing-skills:marketing-ideas) — this is \"should this business exist + can you win it.\" Runs the idea through a structured framework (problem, audience, wedge, monetization, moat, portfolio fit, distribution, energy fit, opportunity cost), checks domain availability via /domain, optionally triggers /deep-research for market validation, and outputs a viability brief: build / sleep on it / pass. Archives every idea to ~/.config/makerskills/business-brainstorm/archive/ so past work is searchable. Triggers on \"/business-brainstorm,\" \"/brainstorm,\" \"new business idea,\" \"should I build X,\" \"pressure test this idea,\" \"validate this idea,\" \"is X a good business,\" \"what about a [type] for [audience].\"
Your team's shared, AI-ready knowledge base — people, companies, meetings, SOPs, and decisions structured so Claude can answer questions on your team's behalf. Team-scope sibling to second-brain (which is personal-scope). Seven modes — capture (drop something into the right structured dir), compile (process into wiki pages, update INDEX.md), query (answer from the corpus with trust weighting, save to outputs/), review (triage queue — verify / deprecate / supersede unreviewed and stale captures so wrong info never becomes context), lint (orphans / stale / contradictions / gaps), connect (suggest new wikilinks), search (quick lookup). Structured raw dirs (people/, companies/, meetings/, sops/, decisions/, customer-language/, recurring-questions/, sales-objections/) instead of second-brain's flat type-prefixed raw/. Multi-author aware — every capture stamps author + timestamp + trust status. Optional auto-sync from Fathom/Gong/Granola call transcripts, Slack/email exports, CRM. Defaults to a vault at ${COMPANY_BRAIN_VAULT:-$HOME/Documents/CompanyBrain}/. Triggers on "/company-brain," "/cb," "capture this into the team brain," "log this meeting," "add this person to the team brain," "save this SOP," "compile the company wiki," "query the team brain," "what does the team know about X," "review the company brain," "cull the team brain," "lint the company brain," "who's the internal expert on X.
Monthly CFO workflow for a company or agency — pull raw data from bank + payment processor + payroll + expense management, categorize and reconcile, compute end-of-month cash via transaction-sum method, update a scenario projector for forward forecasting, write the monthly snapshot report, surface decisions to leadership. Modes — monthly (default; the standing report), weekly (thin cash pulse), scenario (ad-hoc modeling in the projector), pickup (resume where the prior run left off). Anonymized team-scope sibling to personal-cfo (which handles personal household finances). Composes with company-brain (report gets stored + wiki-indexed there), toolify (wire company-specific data sources), loopify (schedule the monthly + weekly runs). Triggers on "/company-cfo," "/cfo," "monthly cash report," "do the CFO snapshot," "CFO monthly," "let's run CFO," "cash projection," "runway forecast," "monthly financials," "cash pulse.
When you have a decision to make and want a structured workflow that picks the load-bearing questions, walks through them, reaches a call (or "wait"), and archives the rationale for future reference. Based on the 37signals Guide to Making Decisions (38 questions) plus house additions like Q39 opportunity cost ("what does saying yes displace?"). Triages to 6–8 relevant questions per decision instead of forcing the full set. Archives every decision to ~/.config/makerskills/decide/archive/ with a revisit date so you can check later whether the call was right. Triggers on "/decide," "help me decide," "should I [X]," "I need to make a decision about," "stuck on a decision," "deciding between," "go/no-go on," "what should I do about." This is both the decision-making workflow AND the decision log — making the decision is the act of logging it.
When you want multi-source, multi-step research on a topic — competitor research before a sales call, market research for a new business idea, positioning angles, due diligence on a partnership or podcast guest, tech decision research (which DB, which auth), or any \"I need to actually understand X.\" Combines WebSearch, WebFetch, agent-browser, /last30days (Reddit/X/YouTube/HN/web recency), memory, and Notion. Outputs a structured brief with citations, contradictions, gaps, and recommended next steps. Archives every research run to ~/.config/makerskills/deep-research/archive/ so past work is searchable. Triggers on \"/deep-research,\" \"research X,\" \"investigate X,\" \"do a deep dive on X,\" \"look into X,\" \"what's actually happening with X,\" \"due diligence on X,\" \"validate this market.\" Differs from a one-shot WebSearch: this is multi-pass with verification.
Gary Vaynerchuk's jab-jab-jab-right-hook framework applied to a personal portfolio rotation on X and LinkedIn. Jabs = build-in-public + educational (value). Hooks = promo (the ask). Each property in the user's configured portfolio (see `~/.config/makerskills/jab-hook/properties.yaml`) gets a hook at least once every ~3 weeks; jabs fill the rest. Drafts go into the user's Typefully workspace via MCP. Modes — plan (7-day plan), pick-next (single post), audit (coverage report), draft (specific post). Triggers on "/jab-hook," "what should I post," "plan my socials," "next promo," "next jab," "next hook," "social rotation," "promote [property]," "BIP post," "audit my socials," "what haven't I posted about.
When you want to set up an agent loop, cron-scheduled task, or recurring workflow that runs autonomously in Claude Code. Judgment layer on top of ScheduleWakeup, CronCreate, and the /loop skill — decides whether to use dynamic pacing (self-scheduling wake-ups), cron scheduling (fixed intervals), or a one-shot loop; tunes delay to avoid the 5-minute cache-miss cliff; designs idempotent loop bodies; sets bail-out conditions so loops don't run forever. Examples of loops to loopify — weekly review pulse, daily brief generation, hourly monitoring of a metric, periodic vault compilation, upstream-check for an adapted skill, sponsorship-pipeline refresh, YouTube-transcript-batch-download, morning startup routine. Triggers on "/loopify," "set up a loop," "schedule this task," "run this daily," "run this weekly," "cron this," "make this recurring," "automate this on a schedule," "keep this running until X." Part of the -ify trifecta (skillify / toolify / loopify) for extending Claude Code. NOT for authoring a new skill — that's skillify. NOT for adding a tool/integration — that's toolify.
When you want multiple expert perspectives on a founder/operator question — a simulated personal board of advisors staffed by legendary founders, CEOs, and operators (Jason Fried, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang, Bob Iger, Paul Graham, Naval Ravikant, Sara Blakely). Bring a real decision — \"should I raise prices?\", \"hire my first employee?\", \"raise or bootstrap?\", \"kill this project?\" — and the council weighs in through their documented frameworks, surfaces where they disagree, and synthesizes a recommendation. Also use when the user mentions 'maker council,' 'board of advisors,' 'what would Bezos do,' 'what would Jason Fried say,' 'channel Naval,' 'ask the council,' 'get multiple perspectives on this decision,' or asks how a famous founder would approach their problem. Optional live-research pass grounds takes in what each member has actually said (via deep-research / watch-video / last30days). Sibling of marketing-skills' marketing-council (marketing questions go there; company-building and operator questions come here). Archives sessions to ~/.config/makerskills/maker-council/archive/. For committing to one of the surfaced directions, hand off to decide.