Connect Domain

The entry point for a domain request whose intent is not clear yet. It settles two things, which domain and what the user has, then continues in the skill that does the work. It never buys, assigns or changes DNS itself, and it says nothing about skills, steps or hand-offs: the user hears one conversation.

Covers US-01 – US-12. §A4b routes US-40 / US-41, and decides whether the domain goes to Assign Domain (US-42 – US-46) or to Connect External Domain or Sub Domain, which hands over a link. Subdomains (US-48 – US-50) go straight there and skip the availability check entirely.

A0. Before Any Call

Normalize the domain before any call, every time one is read from the user: strip http://, https:// and www., strip any trailing path, query string or slash (example.com/shop → example.com), lowercase. With no extension (mybakery), ask which one they want, as Check Domain Availability step 1 says; never add one yourself. The result is {domain} everywhere below. {displayName} is the same name as the user sees it.

A failed call: retry once, silently — nothing said before or after. If the retry also fails, say, verbatim: Something went wrong on our end. Please try again in a moment. If the user tries again and it fails again: Having trouble loading this — try again. You can also search for a domain directly → https://manage.wix.com/account/domains

Never expose internal mechanics — no API, endpoint, tool, field or error names, no status codes — and never narrate work in progress ("let me check", "one moment").

A1. When To Use This Skill

The user wants a custom domain on their Wix site and has not said enough to know which flow it is:

• "Set up a custom domain for my site", "put a domain on my site", "I want a custom domain"
• "mybakery.net", "what about coolbrand.com for my site?" — a domain, and no word about buying or connecting it
• A domain Assign Domain handed back because it is not in the account (§A4)

A request that already says which flow it is goes straight there: buying a domain, or ideas for one, is Purchase Domain; a domain the user says they own goes to Assign Domain; one registered with another provider, or a subdomain, to Connect External Domain or Sub Domain. When one of those arrives here anyway, §A2 sends it on without a question.

⛔ Availability checks are never done by this recipe. Every check of whether a domain is available, taken, free or registered goes through Check Domain Availability. Read that skill, run the check as it describes, then come back with the result: §A4 only decides what happens next. A bare availability question ("is mybakery.com available?") is answered there and ends there.

A question about the state of a domain already in the user's account — when it expires, whether it renews, which site it is on — belongs to Analyse Domain. A question about its DNS records, nameservers or propagation belongs to Analyse Domain DNS, and a change to them to Update Domain DNS. A request to change which site a domain already in the account is on, or its role there — "make X the primary domain", "remove X from my site", "move X to my other site" — belongs to Assign Domain.

UX rule for everything below: keep it natural, never expose internal mechanics, and reveal information only when it changes what the user has to do next. See §A0.

A1.1 ⛔ Out of Scope — Hard Boundary

This skill finds out which domain the user means and what they have, and passes it on. That is the whole job. It has exactly three information sources: check-domain-availability (read Check Domain Availability), suggest-domains (Purchase Domain §S3), and the account read in §A4b. Nothing else.

Never do any of these, even if you have the tools and the user would find it useful:

If the user explicitly asks for one of these — "who owns it?", "can you help me buy it from them?" — decline in one sentence and return to the branch you were in:

A taken domain has exactly one shape of answer in this skill: whichever §A4b branch applies. Nothing may be added to it.

The one lookup that is allowed on a taken domain is the ownership check in §A4b — and it asks a single question: is this domain in the user's own Wix account? That is not registrant research. It searches what the user already has, and it returns nothing about anyone else. Use only whether the domain is in the account, the site it is on and that site's name.

A2. Intent Classification (US-01, US-02)

Two things to establish: the domain and the intent. Take the first row that matches, reading top-down.

The two senses of "connect" (US-51)

Both are CONNECT, and they name different targets. Read which one the user said — it is the difference between two different operations:

Nothing can be assigned to a site until the domain is in the account, so the second is the precondition of the first, not an alternative to it.

The account decides which one is actually possible, and it overrides the phrasing. To a site goes to Assign Domain, whose read settles it; to Wix goes through §A4b's lookup:

• Not in the account — to a site cannot run, however plainly it was asked for. Assign Domain hands the domain back to §A4 with intent CONNECT → a site and ownership already looked up, and the connect link (§A4b-C) is the answer to both phrasings.
• In the account, unassigned (§A4b-B) — to Wix is already true. Read it as to a site; the connect path hands it to Assign Domain.
• In the account, on a site (§A4b-A) — both phrasings are already satisfied; §A4b-A answers, or hands a change of role or site to Assign Domain.

⛔ Never correct the user's wording. They are describing an outcome, not calling an API. Act on what the account says is possible and say what you did — do not explain that they used the wrong verb.

The article does most of the work: a domain is one the user does not have yet (purchase); my domain, or a named domain plus "I have" / "I own", is one they already hold (connect). Do not fall through to the question just because the words "buy" or "purchase" are absent — "I need a domain for my pancakes restaurant" is a purchase. With nothing but the site to go on ("I want a domain for my site"), it is the no-domain row: ask which domain.

An answer of "connect" / "I have one" with no domain named → ask "What domain would you like to connect?", then take the answer through §A3's named-domain row (normalize, subdomain → Connect External Domain or Sub Domain, else §A4) — or to Assign Domain when the user wants it on a site.

Do not ask "do you already own this domain?" — not before the availability check, and not after it either. Asking first produces the awkward case where the user claims to own a domain that is not even registered; asking afterwards is redundant, because §A4b looks the domain up in their account and answers it without a turn of conversation.

A3. Do We Have a Domain? (US-03, US-04)

Take the first row that matches, reading top-down. A domain the user named wins over everything else in this table — including a site they named in the same breath.

A4. What the Availability Result Means (US-07, US-08, US-09)

Check the normalized domain silently — no "let me check", no "one moment". This recipe does not run the check: read Check Domain Availability and run it as that skill describes (endpoints, request, response, errors), here as everywhere. This section only decides what happens next. Inside this flow §A4a, §A4b and §A6 decide the reply; the "Reading the result" table in that skill does not apply. Map the result with this table, and keep the intent §A2 settled — a result never changes it:

A4a — available: true (US-08)

• Intent is PURCHASE or UNKNOWN → go to Purchase Domain §S2 and follow it. It says the domain is available and continues into the purchase.
• Intent is CONNECT → the user cannot connect a domain nobody has registered. Say: "{displayName} isn't registered yet — did you mean you'd like to purchase it?"
  • Yes → go to Purchase Domain §P1 and follow it.
  • No → "Do you own a different domain you'd like to connect?" → back to §A4 with the new domain.

A4b — available: false (US-09)

The domain is registered. Registered by whom is the next question, and it decides everything that follows — so answer it before you say a word.

Step 1 — whose domain is it? (silent)

Run the read in Assign Domain's Read the state — one call, exactly as that skill shows it — with targetSiteId set to the site the user named, or null when they named none. It answers whether this exact domain is in the account and which site it is on. If it returns failed: true, run the same call once more, silently (Assign Domain's failed row). Never look the domain up in any other call.

• User is not logged in, or the read returns failed: true a second time → skip to §A4b-C. Ownership is unknown, which is what §A4b-C's copy already assumes.
• Handed back by Assign Domain — it found the domain is not in the account, or could not tell (signed out, or its read failed). Skip the read and go to Connect External Domain or Sub Domain with ownership asserted — §A4b-C's CONNECT rule: no suggestions.

This runs before the suggestions call and before any message. Alternatives are only fetched in §A4b-C. Fetching them first means offering a user replacements for a domain they already own.

A4b-A — it is theirs, and already connected (US-40)

{siteName} is sites[assignment.siteId].name from the same read (your site when it is null). One message, then stop:

No suggestions. No connect link — there is nothing to connect. No "if it's yours" — the account just said it is. Terminal state.

If assignment.role is REDIRECT, the domain is in use as a forward:

If the user wanted it in the other role on that same site (US-45), or on a different site than the one it is on — a move (US-46) — this is not terminal after all. Ownership is confirmed, so go to Assign Domain and follow it, carrying the domain, the requested site and role, and ownership confirmed. Do not compose the answer here, and do not ask "Want to move it to {requested site}?" on its own — Assign Domain's offer names the site the domain comes off, which may be losing its primary domain.

A4b-B — it is theirs, and not connected to anything (US-41)

Ownership is settled, so there is no question to ask and nothing to hedge. Go to Assign Domain and follow it, carrying the domain, the requested site and role if the user named them, and ownership confirmed. It resolves the site, checks the plan, makes the offer and does the work, or answers a Free site with the upgrade. Do not compose any of that wording here, and do not promise here that the domain will be connected.

Carrying ownership as confirmed is what lets Assign Domain offer to do the work rather than only pointing at the dashboard; carrying it as asserted silently downgrades the user's outcome to a link.

No suggestions, no "do you own this?", no "if it's yours".

A4b-C — not in their Wix account (US-09)

It cannot be purchased here — Wix registers available domains, it does not resell taken ones. This branch is short and closed.

⚠️ This branch is not "someone else owns it". A domain held at an outside registrar and never connected to a Wix site is invisible to the lookup, so the user may well own it. Never say or imply otherwise — see Connect External Domain or Sub Domain §9.

CONNECT intent first — including every domain handed back by Assign Domain. Skip everything below: no suggest-domains call, no alternatives. A domain they cannot register is no use to them. Go straight to Connect External Domain or Sub Domain with ownership asserted. If the user is logged out, it asks them to log in; once they do, its ownership check can run, and a match hands the domain to Assign Domain.

Any other intent: do exactly two things: call suggest-domains with the SLD only for 3 alternatives (Purchase Domain §S3), then send one message containing only this:

That is the entire response. No registrar, no "someone renewed it six months ago", no valuation, no broker or outreach option, no TLDs you thought of yourself. If your answer to a taken domain is longer than the block above, you have left this skill — see §A1.1.

The "If it's yours" hedge is correct here and only here — either the ownership check found nothing, or it could not run. Ownership is a guess in this branch, and the copy says so honestly.

No connection is performed on this path. §A4b-B can offer to do the work because an account lookup proved the domain is the user's; here nothing proved it. Assign Domain refuses to write an unverified domain onto a live site, so the connect link is the whole of what this branch can offer — no primary-or-redirect question, no assignment, however plainly the user says it is theirs. If they are right and the domain is theirs at an outside registrar, the dashboard is where that gets sorted out.

This holds even when the user asked to connect it "to my site" — or to assign or bind it there (§A2). That request names an assignment, and an assignment cannot run on a domain the account does not hold; bringing it into Wix comes first and the link is what does that. Give the link, and do not promise the site assignment as though it were about to happen. Do not lecture them about the order either: the link goes to the page where both steps are completed, so "you can connect it to a Wix site" is a true and sufficient answer.

The one thing that can change this: the user was logged out, logs in, and the ownership check runs for the first time (Connect External Domain or Sub Domain §3, Case C). A match found then goes to Assign Domain, and the offer comes with it.

The three alternatives are whatever suggest-domains returned, in the order it returned them. For etzlenu.com that is theetzlenu.com, etzlenu.net, etzlenuco.com — not a .io/.dev/.app list you assembled. Those may well be available; they are still fabricated output, because no call produced them.

Then branch on the reply:

• Picks an alternative → that is the chosen domain, skip re-checking availability (US-06) → go to Purchase Domain §P1 and follow it.
• Says it is theirs / wants to connect → go to Connect External Domain or Sub Domain and follow it, carrying the domain, the fact that it is already known to be taken, and ownership asserted by the user (not confirmed — the account search did not find it).
• Wants something else → back to §A3.

A4c — DOMAINS_UNSUPPORTED_TLD

→ §A6.

A4d — Any other failure

→ §A0. Retry once silently; the user should never learn a first attempt happened.

A5. Suggestions

Suggestions are Purchase Domain §S3: the call, the paging and the copy. §A4b-C uses it for its three alternatives.

A6. Unsupported TLD — Split by Intent (US-10, US-11, US-12)

Detected as an HTTP 400 body with details.applicationError.code === "DOMAINS_UNSUPPORTED_TLD" — there is no availability object on this response. See §A4.

The message opens the same way for both intents:

What follows depends on intent — these two branches are different and must not be merged.

A6a — PURCHASE intent (US-11)

Go to Purchase Domain §S4 and follow it.

A6b — CONNECT intent (US-12)

Do not show alternatives — a domain they do not own is no use for connecting. Ask for another domain instead:

• User gives another domain → normalize → back to §A4.
• User has none → offer to buy one instead: "Would you like to look for a domain to purchase instead?" If yes → Purchase Domain §S3, then §P1.

A6c — UNKNOWN intent

Treat as PURCHASE: go to Purchase Domain §S4, and let the alternatives list do the disambiguating.

A7. Routing Summary

Every branch ends in exactly one of these. Name the destination to yourself, then follow that section — do not improvise the next step from memory.

A8. Fallback (US-38, US-39)

A call that fails twice is handled the same way everywhere in this skill — silent retry, then the two messages. §A0 is the rule, including the verbatim copy. Never expose an error code, endpoint or tool name in any of it.