Addresses: subdomains and slugs

Every brand has a subdomain, and every published manual has a public address built from it. Here are the addresses you can get, how to change them, and what happens to old links.

WhereDashboard, Domains

The three addresses

Domains (opens in a new tab) lists every manual of the brand with the address it has, under Manual addresses, and marks each line Own subdomain, Root of the workspace address or Path on the workspace address. Each row has a copy button, and an Open link once the manual is published.

The brand address

A brand gets its subdomain when it is created, made from the Company name you typed.

• You find it in Settings (opens in a new tab) under Subdomain, and at the top of Domains (opens in a new tab) as Workspace address.
• It cannot be changed by anyone: The subdomain is fixed to keep public links stable.
• Renaming the brand does not change it.
• It is on every plan, Free included. A paid plan adds a domain you own beside it. See Your own domain.

Which manual answers at the root

The primary manual. One manual per brand is primary, and the first manual of a brand is primary automatically.

WhereDashboard, Brand manual, Manual actions, Make primary

The button appears only on a manual that is not already primary. Press it and two addresses change at once: the new primary moves to the root of the brand address, and the old primary drops to its path. A manual with its own subdomain keeps it either way. Nothing forwards.

If the primary manual is not published, a visitor at the brand address is told the hub is not published yet. They are not sent to another manual.

Giving a manual its own subdomain

WhereDashboard, Brand manual, Settings, Web address

1. Open the manual and go to the Web address card, Where this manual is published.
2. Type a name. The field cleans up what you type as you type, then answers Checking availability... and either name.stylehub.cloud is available. in green or the reason it is not in red.
3. Save the settings.

New brand manual asks for one and requires it, answering Please choose a web address for this manual. if you leave it empty. An existing manual can be given one, moved to another, or taken off one at any time. Clear the field to put it back on the brand address, and the card shows the address it falls back to.

What a name may be

Letters a-z, digits 0-9 and hyphens, at least 3 characters and at most 40. Anything else you type is cleaned up rather than refused.

• Capitals become lowercase, and spaces around the name are cut.
• Any other character becomes a hyphen.
• Runs of hyphens become one, and hyphens at the ends are removed.
• Too short and the field answers Use at least 3 characters: letters, numbers and hyphens.

So Acme Brand! is saved as acme-brand.

Already taken

Brand addresses and manual subdomains share one pool of names, so a name is taken when either kind holds it, published or not, and the field answers "name" is already taken. Two names are allowed: the name of the brand the manual belongs to, which is what the first manual of a brand takes, and the manual's own current address. You cannot see who holds a name, and there is no queue for one.

Reserved

49 names are kept by the platform and refused to everyone. Asking for one answers "name" is reserved by the platform. Please pick another one.

app, www, admin, dashboard, api, auth, login, signup, mail, email, smtp, imap, ftp, cdn, assets, static, img, images, media, files, download, downloads, status, help, support, docs, doc, blog, news, about, billing, pay, payments, stripe, webhook, webhooks, stylehub, root, test, staging, dev, preview, demo, go, link, links, s, u, register

The path on a brand address

A manual with no subdomain of its own, and that is not primary, is served under a path. The field is Path on the brand address in the same Web address card, shown only on a manual that is not primary. Accents are stripped, anything that is not a letter or a digit becomes a hyphen, and the result is cut to 48 characters. api, _next and favicon belong to the service, so a path that is one of those gets -manual added. A path another manual of the same brand already uses gets a hyphen and six random characters.

Renaming, and old links

Nothing forwards. There is no redirect from an old address to a new one. The moment you save, the manual answers at the new address and the old one does not.

After a rename, check links from your own website, emails and printed pieces, links inside other manuals (they are ordinary links and are not rewritten, see Text and links), anything reading the API or downloading the PDF by that name, and what search engines have indexed (see SEO).

The name the API uses

The read only API names a manual the way its public address does, so renaming an address renames the API address built from it. The dashboard page API (opens in a new tab) shows the exact API address of every published manual.

# The primary manual of the brand
curl https://stylehub.cloud/api/v1/manuals/acme.json

# A named manual of the same brand
curl https://stylehub.cloud/api/v1/manuals/acme.guidelines.json

# A manual that has its own subdomain
curl https://stylehub.cloud/api/v1/manuals/guidelines.json

Add .json for the manual, /tokens.json for its design tokens, .pdf for the document. A manual that is not published, or a name that matches nothing, answers a 404. More is in the API examples (opens in a new tab) and the API documentation (opens in a new tab).

Where a domain of your own fits

A connected domain serves the brand the way the brand address does: the root answers with the primary published manual, and the other published manuals answer under their paths. One domain per brand, on the paid plans, and it belongs to the brand rather than to a single manual. The brand address keeps working; nothing is replaced. The DNS record and what to do when the check keeps failing are in Your own domain.

Moving and copying a manual

• Moved to another brand. Its subdomain moves with it only if the receiving brand may hold that name. A name it may not hold is dropped, and the manual falls back to the receiving brand's address.
• Its path may change on the way. If the receiving brand already has a manual with that path, the moved one gets a suffix. Both brands' histories record it under Address.
• Duplicated. The copy gets its own subdomain, built from its new title (the original title followed by copy) plus six random characters. It arrives as a draft and is not primary.

Moving is on Settings (opens in a new tab) under Move a manual. What else travels with a manual, and who may move one, is in Handing a brand over, moving a manual, leaving.

Who can change an address

A manual frozen after a downgrade cannot be edited, including its address. The page it is on keeps serving. See Roles and Downgrading.

When an address does not answer

An unverified custom domain answers with none of these. It is not served at all until the DNS record is found.