Custom Domains

Hatch gives each deployment a stable subdomain first. From there, the same routing model can support branded domains once ownership, DNS, and HTTPS are verified.

What Works Today

A Hatch deployment is reachable through the project subdomain, for example https://my-app.hatchcloud.xyz. That hostname resolves through the wildcard record and the load balancer routes it to the correct service.

Hatch URL

default

each project gets a predictable production hostname

Wildcard DNS

dns

one wildcard record covers generated app subdomains

Host Routing

alb

requests are matched by hostname and sent to the app

Custom Domain Flow

This is the product path Hatch should expose when custom domains become a first-class feature.

Deploy on a Hatch URL

Every app gets a production URL on your Hatch wildcard domain first, so you can test the service before attaching anything custom.

Add a domain to the project

Choose the project, enter the hostname, and Hatch can reserve that domain mapping for the selected deployment.

Create the DNS record

Point the hostname at the Hatch app load balancer. Subdomains use CNAME records; apex domains usually need ALIAS or CNAME flattening.

Verify and route traffic

Once DNS resolves correctly, Hatch can attach the host rule and route requests to the project target group.

Serve it over HTTPS

Wildcard Hatch URLs use the shared certificate. Custom domains should use a verified certificate before being promoted.

DNS Records

The exact target comes from your Hatch user-app infrastructure. For local development, you can inspect it from Terraform outputs or the AWS load balancer page.

Hostname	Record	Target	Use case
*.hatchcloud.xyz	CNAME	user-app ALB DNS name	Generated Hatch subdomains
www.example.com	CNAME	user-app ALB DNS name	Custom subdomain
example.com	ALIAS / ANAME	user-app ALB DNS name	Apex custom domain

check-dns.sh

nslookup my-app.hatchcloud.xyz
curl -i https://my-app.hatchcloud.xyz

If a hostname still points at the old load balancer, the deployment can look live in Hatch but return the default "No project mapped" response in the browser.

HTTPS

Hatch subdomains are covered by the wildcard certificate for the app domain. Branded custom domains need their own certificate before Hatch can safely serve them over HTTPS.

Generated subdomains

ready

covered by the shared wildcard certificate

External domains

verify

require ownership validation and certificate attachment