Domain shortlist — availability-first.com hunting

Brainstorm and check available .com domains for a new product, brand, or project. The whole method rests on one rule from Laura Roeder: work backwards from what's actually available — don't fall in love with a name first. A name you love with no registrable .com is a dead end; a name you find by checking availability first is a shortlist.

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

When to run

Invoke when the user says:

• "Find me a domain for [product]" / "What .com is available for [idea]?"
• "Is [name].com available?" / "Check domain availability for these"
• "Brainstorm domain names for [product]" / "Help me name my project"
• "What's the aftermarket price on [name].com?" / "Trademark check for [name]"

Do NOT invoke when:

• User wants a full brand identity (colours, logo, type) → brand-kit
• User wants market positioning or category → positioning
• User wants product/company naming strategy beyond the domain → treat naming as the deliverable, but the domain check is this skill

The core principle — availability-first

The order is the deliverable. Most people pick a name, then discover the .com is gone or five figures, then compromise. This flow inverts that:

brainstorm → check what's registrable → filter to budget → THEN research the name
   (many) (RDAP, free) (drop the rest) (trademark + socials)

Trademark screening and social-handle checks are deliberately deferred until after availability and budget filtering. There's no point clearing a trademark on a name you can't register. See the premium reference for the full step-by-step.

Genesys tooling — free web lookups

This skill is re-tooled onto free, web-native checks. No paid domain APIs and no registrar CLI are required.

Job	Free tool (default)	Signal
Availability	RDAP over curl / WebFetch — rdap.org/domain/{name}	404 = available · 200 = taken
.com ground truth	RDAP authoritative registry — rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/{name}	404 = available · 200 = taken
Registrant + expiry	RDAP JSON events, or whois (CLI or WebFetch to a whois viewer)	dates, registrar, contact
Aftermarket sweep	Firecrawl scrape → click-through fallback	listed price / "make offer"
Trademark screen	Firecrawl scrape → USPTO click-through	Live exact-phrase match in class
Social handles	curl / WebFetch to x.com/{h}, linkedin.com/company/{h}	404 = available

Paid tools are deferred, not required. Domainr API (aggregated marketplace status), Namecheap API (year-1 promo pricing), and the Vercel CLI (.com check + buy) are optional cross-checks — use them only if the user already has the keys or CLI configured. The free RDAP + Firecrawl + click-through path covers every base without them.

On the anti-bot pages: HugeDomains, Afternic, Sedo, Dan, and USPTO's search SPA all sit behind Cloudflare / AWS WAF and reliably 403 raw curl and WebFetch. Firecrawl's unblocker is the one assisted attempt; a composed click-through URL is the reliable fallback the user clicks in ~30 seconds. Don't fight the scrapers with headless-browser workarounds.

The flow

Nine steps, availability-first. Full commands and the anti-bot tool ladders live in the premium reference; the seed-word brainstorming method and budget buckets live in the premium reference.

1. Budget — ask what they'd pay; anchor to the budget buckets; filter all candidates under-budget before checking.
2. Brainstorm — 20–40 candidates via the seed-word method (two-word mashups preferred; prefix/suffix grid when a bare word is taken). Surface the numbered list before checking.
3. Availability (free RDAP) — loop rdap.org (404 = available, 200 = taken), pacing for its rate limit.
4. Cross-check — authoritative .com RDAP (rdap.verisign.com) for ground truth; RDAP JSON / whois for registrant + expiry.
5. Aftermarket sweep — for taken-but-wanted candidates, Firecrawl scrape → click-through to HugeDomains / Afternic / Sedo / Dan.
6. Bucket — available-now / aftermarket-under-budget / drop.
7. Negotiate — lowball 30–50% below ask; use "make an offer"; direct owner outreach for parked domains.
8. Name research (NOW, not before) — USPTO trademark screen + X / LinkedIn / Instagram handle checks on the top 3–5 survivors.
9. Buy — register the winner at a mainstream registrar, or buy through the marketplace escrow. Confirm before spending — real money.

Domain shortlist — {project}, {date}

Budget: {$ range}

Available now (~$10–$30/yr)

Domain	RDAP status	Notes
trycove.com	AVAILABLE (404)	two-word mashup, easy spell

Aftermarket — under budget

Domain	Asking	Marketplace	Link
cove.com	$1,795	HugeDomains	{url}

Dropped (over budget / no listing / weak)

• clubhouse.com — five-figure, ungoogleable

Recommended pick — {domain}

• Availability: AVAILABLE / listed at {price}
• Trademark screen: {no blocking Live exact-phrase match in class N | flag}
• Social handles: x.com ☑ · linkedin ☑ · instagram (verify)
• Say-it-out-loud test: spellable on a phone call ☑
• Caveat: screening, not legal clearance — run serious names past an IP lawyer

Route the file to the relevant project or client folder as `MMYY-domain-shortlist.md` per the CLAUDE.md naming convention.

## Guardrails

- **Brainstorm-first, action-last.** RDAP and social checks are free and safe; a purchase is not. Never trigger a buy until the user says "buy it."
- **Budget filter is non-negotiable.** "But I love it" is the exact trap the method catches.
- **USPTO screening ≠ legal clearance.** Gut-check filtering only; serious names go to an IP lawyer or a full clearance service.
- **No invented availability.** Report the RDAP status code you actually got. If a check is rate-limited or unclear, say so — don't guess a domain is free.

## Final ship gate

Run `/premortem --output` before ship. See [`/premortem` skill](../../../../meta/orchestration/premortem/SKILL.md) for the 5 execution domains and output template. For a domain shortlist the sharpest failure modes are: a top pick that trademark-collides in its own class, a name unspellable on a phone call, or one that ages badly as the company grows past the founding idea.

Trivial-case escape: `## Premortem\nNo failure modes — trivial change` satisfies the contract for a quick single-domain availability check.

## Attribution

Adapts the availability-first domain method from [`coreyhaines31/makerskills/domain`](https://github.com/coreyhaines31/makerskills) (MIT, © 2026 Corey Haines; itself crediting Laura Roeder's method), accessed 2026-07-08. Re-tooled onto free RDAP/whois + WebFetch; paid aggregators deferred.