solo-domain

domain — is this name actually free?

A name is not available because a domain is free. It has to be clear on every surface the product will live on: the zones you will buy, the App Store (where names are unique and a collision blocks release), Google Play, the code host, and the trademark register. Checking only the domain is how people buy a domain for a name the App Store will later refuse.

Output: a table of candidates against those surfaces, and a recommendation that says what the runner-up trades away.

Workflow

1. List candidates. 6–12 names, including the user's own suggestions verbatim — they know their brand voice, and the job here is verification, not taste.
2. Zones. RDAP first, whois for ccTLDs — RDAP lies about them, see Gotchas.
3. App Store. Exact-name search. Do this before pricing domains: a blocked store name makes the domain worthless.
4. Code host. GitHub is a reliable signal; most social sites are not.
5. Whatever sits on a taken .com. Fetch its title. Parked junk, "Coming Soon" and a live business in the same category are three different risks, not one.
6. Trademark. Search the exact name plus "trademark". Flag holders who defend aggressively in that category.
7. Recommend one, with the trade-off stated.

Zones

# RDAP: 404 = free, 200 = registered. -L is required — rdap.org answers 302 first.
avail() { [ "$(curl -sL -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' --max-time 20 \
  "https://rdap.org/domain/$1")" = "404" ] && echo FREE || echo taken; }

# ccTLDs (.co .io .me .ai …) — RDAP usually has no server for them, so whois is the source.
avail_cc() { whois "$1" 2>/dev/null | grep -qiE "no match|not found|no data found" \
  && echo FREE || echo taken; }

Run the check against a domain known to be registered (google.com, google.co) before trusting a batch. That one control call is what separates a report from a guess.

App Store

curl -s "https://itunes.apple.com/search?term=NAME&entity=software&limit=25&country=us" \
  | python3 -c "
import json,sys,re
n='NAME'.lower()
r=json.load(sys.stdin)['results']
hit=[a['trackName'] for a in r if n==re.sub(r'[^a-z0-9]','',a['trackName'].lower().split(':')[0])]
print('TAKEN: '+hit[0] if hit else 'free')"