DomainScout README

DomainScout

Domain research for AI agents. Every good .com is taken. Find the ones that aren't.

DomainScout is an MCP server for bulk domain search. Your AI assistant brainstorms hundreds of names, and DomainScout checks all of them in one call: which are free, what they cost and where to buy them. It runs on your own machine. You need no account and no server of ours, and API keys are optional.

Website · npm · MCP Registry · Examples

What it does

• Finds the free names in a long list. Hundreds of names in one call; 500 .com names take about 20 seconds.
• Checks for real. DNS first, then the registry itself over RDAP, or WHOIS where a TLD has no RDAP. A bought but unused domain is still reported as taken.
• Compares prices at nine registrars: Cloudflare, Porkbun, Namecheap, Spaceship, GoDaddy, Name.com, Dynadot, NameSilo and Hover. The first year, the renewal and any minimum term, cheapest to own first.
• Spots the traps. Premium and reserved names (with a registrar API key), and taken names that are being deleted and may become available soon.
• Any TLD. .com, .net and .ai by default; ask for any other.

DomainScout does not invent names: your assistant does that, and DomainScout tells it which of them are really free.

Install

Node 20 or newer.

Claude Desktop: one click: download the extension and open it. Claude Desktop asks to install it, and lets you set the options below.

Claude Code: the plugin adds the server and a skill that runs the whole name search (brainstorm, check, present the free names with prices):

/plugin marketplace add JohnDaka/domainscout-mcp
/plugin install domainscout@domainscout

Or the server alone:

claude mcp add domainscout -- npx -y @dakaio/domainscout-mcp

Cursor and VS Code: use the buttons at the top, or add the server to the MCP config.

Any MCP client: add to the MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "domainscout": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@dakaio/domainscout-mcp"],
      "env": { "DOMAINSCOUT_TLDS": "com,net,ai,io" }
    }
  }
}

On Windows, if npx is not found, use "command": "cmd" with "args": ["/c", "npx", "-y", "@dakaio/domainscout-mcp"].

Then just ask: "Brainstorm 200 names for my coffee subscription app and tell me which .com domains are free."

From source: npm install && npm run build, then run node /path/to/domainscout-mcp/dist/index.js in place of npx -y @dakaio/domainscout-mcp.

Tools

check_domains

Checks whether domain names are free to register, and shows prices and where to buy the free ones. Read-only: it never registers or changes anything.

It returns a short text report for the model and the same data as structured content: a summary with counts per status, one result per domain (status, note, registration dates, buy links with prices), skipped entries and warnings.

Example

You ask your assistant "I'm naming a note-taking app. Brainstorm 500 names and tell me which .com domains are free." The assistant calls check_domains once with all 500 names and gets back:

Checked 500 domain(s) in 23.0s: 27 available, 473 taken.

AVAILABLE (cheapest known offer for each):
- quillloom.com: $10.46/yr at Cloudflare https://www.cloudflare.com/domains/search/?q=quillloom.com
- scribeloom.com: $10.46/yr at Cloudflare https://www.cloudflare.com/domains/search/?q=scribeloom.com
- scribebloom.com: $10.46/yr at Cloudflare https://www.cloudflare.com/domains/search/?q=scribebloom.com
...
TAKEN: quillwise.com, quillnest.com, quillflow.com, quillhub.com, quillpad.com, quillbox.com,
  quillbase.com, quillkit.com, ...

Ask about a few favourites afterwards and each one gets every registrar's link and price. More real output, including the command line and JSON: examples.

Results card

In clients that support MCP Apps (Claude on the web and desktop, VS Code, ChatGPT and others), each check_domains call shows an interactive panel, the same as on the website:

• The free domains as a price table (domains down the side, registrars across the top, every price a link), a list or cards, in a dark or light theme, switched beside the TLD filter. The table sorts by any column; a TLD filter narrows every view to one TLD.
• Prices as a range across registrars, with what renewing costs when it differs from the first year and what a minimum term costs upfront. Registrars are always in price order, cheapest first, the same as in the text report.
• Every registrar for a name under "All registrars" or the table's "N more", each a link.
• Save the names you like and mark the ones to take after as Similar, then Regenerate: the chat brainstorms a new batch like the marked names (or in the same style, when none are marked) that leaves out every name checked so far, and the saved domains come along in the new check (the saved parameter), still marked as saved and listed first. "Saved 3" beside Regenerate asks the chat to compare the saved domains; both buttons explain themselves on hover. "Try other TLDs" re-checks the taken names elsewhere, and "Compare in chat" asks the chat to pick one of the saved names; it sees what you saved. "Download CSV" saves the free domains with prices and links.

The panel ships in the package (ui/), loads nothing from elsewhere, and uses only what the client offers: a client that can't send messages or save files simply doesn't show those buttons. Other clients show the text report.

How it checks

For each domain, in parallel and within polite rate limits:

1. DNS. If the TLD zone delegates the name, it is taken. This step is free and saves the registries' rate limits.
2. The registry over RDAP, the authoritative source. If the domain is found, it is taken; the result includes expiry, and a note when the domain is being deleted and may become available soon. A 404 means it is likely available.
3. WHOIS, only for TLDs without RDAP (for example .io and .de) or when RDAP fails.
4. Your registrar API, optional. If you set an API key, the registrar confirms that each free-looking name can really be bought, flags premium names and gives the exact price.

Having no DNS never proves a domain is free: a bought but unused domain has no DNS either. Without a registrar API key, "not in the registry" is reported as likely_available. Premium and registry-reserved names look the same there, so the registrar's page has the final price.

Authentication

None. DomainScout works without an account or API keys. Registrar API keys are optional: with one, free-looking names are confirmed by the registrar, premium names are flagged and the exact price is shown. One key is enough. With several, the APIs are asked in this order, each name only until one answers.

Each key is sent only to its own registrar's API, and it never appears in output, logs or error messages. If a registrar rejects a key, the result says so in its notes, and the check still works without that registrar.

Settings

Set these as environment variables in the MCP config. All are optional.

Rate limits

• Per call: up to 500 domains after adding TLDs (DOMAINSCOUT_MAX_DOMAINS, at most 10,000) and 1,000 input entries.
• Registries: each RDAP server gets at most 2 requests in flight and 5 per second; each WHOIS server one query at a time, at most one per second. A server that answers "too many requests" is left alone for as long as it asks, and the request is retried.
• Registrar APIs: every API gets its documented limit (Name.com 10 requests per second, Cloudflare 4, Spaceship 30 per 30 seconds, Porkbun 8 batches per minute), and at most DOMAINSCOUT_CONFIRM_MAX names per call are confirmed. Porkbun throttles an account to 50 names per 5 minutes for a day once it has checked about 1,800 names in 3 hours while registering few of them; the limit keeps every call well below that. A tool call can pass confirm: false to skip confirmation for a large list.

Pricing

DomainScout is free and open source under the MIT license. There is no account, subscription or usage fee. The prices it shows are the registrars' own standard prices, from public price lists, or the exact price from your registrar API.

Privacy Policy

The full policy: domainscout.dakaio.com/privacy.html.

• Data collection: none. No account, no telemetry, no analytics, and no server of this project. We never receive the names you check, your conversations or your API keys.
• Usage: to answer a check, your machine sends the domain names, and nothing else, to your DNS resolver, the registries (RDAP/WHOIS) and the APIs of the registrars whose keys you set. It also downloads IANA's list of registries and two public price lists, the Porkbun price API and cfdomainpricing.com (a community mirror of Cloudflare's prices); these get no domain names. DOMAINSCOUT_PRICES=off turns the price lists off.
• Storage: recent answers are cached in memory while the server runs. Nothing is written to disk. API keys stay in your MCP client's settings and go only to their own registrar.
• Third-party sharing: none by us. The services above see the requests your machine sends them. Buy links open the registrar's site, and some are affiliate links (see below).
• Retention: nothing is kept after the server stops.
• Contact: GitHub issues, or the Security tab for anything private.

Affiliate links

Some buy links may be affiliate links. When they are, the result says so, and buying through them earns the project a commission at no extra cost to you. Links are always ordered by price and never by commission. DOMAINSCOUT_AFFILIATE=off turns them off.

Security

The tool is read-only, runs on your machine, and sends each API key only to its own registrar. To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

Support

• Questions, bugs and ideas: GitHub issues
• Website: domainscout.dakaio.com

Command line

npx @dakaio/domainscout-mcp check acme getacme.io --tlds com,dev
npx @dakaio/domainscout-mcp check acme --json --no-confirm
npx @dakaio/domainscout-mcp check $(cat names.txt) --tlds com

Development

npm run verify     # typecheck + lint (Biome) + tests with coverage thresholds
npm run build

Releases happen on merge. A pull request's title says what it is (feat: …, fix: …, docs: …, feat!: …; .github/workflows/pr-title.yml checks it), and once it is merged into main, .github/workflows/publish.yml decides: feat raises the minor version, fix and perf the patch version, a ! or a line starting BREAKING CHANGE: the major one, and anything else, or a change to nothing the package ships, releases nothing. A release raises the version in package.json, manifest.json and server.json, adds the merged pull requests to CHANGELOG.md, tags it, publishes to npm (trusted publishing), creates a GitHub Release with the Claude Desktop extension, publishes to the MCP Registry and points the Claude plugin at the new version with a lockfile, committing to main as it goes. The landing page goes out on every change to site/ (.github/workflows/landing.yml).

License

MIT © dakaio.com