Domains & DNS overview

A project domain is a domain you already own (like example.com) that you onboard to Comwit Cloud so the platform can manage its DNS for you. Comwit creates a hosted zone for the domain in Amazon Route 53, you point your registrar’s nameservers at that zone, and from then on Comwit becomes the DNS manager — you create and edit DNS records through Comwit instead of at your registrar.

This is called the delegated-DNS flow:

1. You onboard the domain. Comwit creates a Route 53 hosted zone and returns its nameservers.
2. You update the nameserver (NS) records at your registrar to those values.
3. Comwit confirms the delegation, and DNS record management unlocks.

You keep owning the domain

Onboarding does not transfer your domain to Comwit. You still own it at your registrar — you are only delegating who answers DNS queries for it. You can restore your original nameservers at any time to move DNS management back.

How DNS work flows through the platform

Every Route 53 action — creating the hosted zone, reading and writing records, checking delegation, and tearing the zone down — goes through the Comwit platform API. The console (apps/web) never talks to AWS directly; it calls the platform API, which is the single component that holds AWS credentials and owns all Route 53 mutations.

In practice you have two ways to drive these flows:

• The comwit CLI (shown first on each sub-page).
• The HTTP API at https://api.cloud.comwit.io (the equivalent route is shown alongside).

What you can do today

The delegated-DNS flow is live end to end:

• Onboard a domain you already own and get back the nameservers to set at your registrar.
• Confirm delegation so Comwit verifies your registrar now points at the Comwit zone.
• Manage DNS records (A, AAAA, CNAME, TXT, MX, and apex A_ALIAS) once the domain is managed.
• Attach an app to a managed domain so Comwit writes the right records for a custom app hostname automatically.
• Remove a domain, which cleans up the records and the hosted zone.

Domain lifecycle and status

As you move a domain through onboarding, its status reflects where it is:

• pending_delegation — the hosted zone exists, but your registrar’s nameservers do not yet point at it. Record create/update is locked.
• managed — delegation is confirmed and DNS record management is unlocked.

Delegation can lapse

If a domain that was managed later stops delegating to Comwit (for example, someone changes the nameservers back at the registrar), it returns to pending_delegation and record create/update is locked again. Deletes still work in that state, so you are never trapped.

Buying new domains (planned)

Onboarding a domain you already own is the live path. Registrar purchase of brand-new domains through Comwit is designed but not yet implemented.

Domain purchase is not live

The registrar/purchase routes (domain availability, pricing, and domain orders) are planned and not yet shippable. Today, register or buy your domain at any registrar you like, then onboard it here with the delegated-DNS flow. When purchase ships it will return an asynchronous order resource rather than pretending registration is instant.

Where to go next

• Bring your own domain — onboard a domain you own and confirm delegation.
• DNS records — list, create, update, and delete the records in your managed zone.
• Connect a domain to an app — point a custom hostname at a deployed app with Automatic DNS.
• Remove and purchase — take a domain back out of Comwit, plus the planned purchase flow.

New to the platform?

If you have not deployed anything yet, start with the Quickstart and the Apps overview before connecting a custom domain.