I usually want to find domains that riff on abstract concepts, using specific words, TLDs, or internal structure. This is tedious work by hand, so I built a skill that an AI agent (like Codex) can use to make finding available domain names much easier.

-> Check it out here! <-

The instructions in the readme should get you started. Once you get this skill set up, you can then try prompts like:

Find available domain names for a quiet note-taking app. Prefer .com names, but include strong domain hacks if they read as real words.

Your agent will use the skill to source and look up domain names, finding only the options which both fit your request and are available to register. As you might imagine, this skill also works well for multi-turn brainstorming, and you can task your agent with more complex domain-searching tasks as well. For example:

Find all four-letter birds that are available as domain names. Search only two and three letter TLDs.

I used $domain-search in Codex with that prompt, and after ~9 minutes of searching it found coua.app, smew.io, and huia.me, among many others. Those domains are available as of this writing, but it turns out the huia is extinct as of 1926. RIP!

The skill isn’t perfect, e.g. it occasionally reports unavailable domain names as available. Bugs are usually registrar-specific and easy to fix, but I’m not sure if I’ve caught all the edge cases yet. I’ll keep working on it.

PRs are welcome if you want to contribute ideas or bug fixes!

So here’s a quick idea for you: AI assistants have a sort of inverse ego. These tools go beyond selflessness; with detailed adaptation to my wants and needs, they serve as an extension of my mind. Chat feels like an exo-self, adding inertia to whatever conceptualization I’m working on. This is wonderful for intentional forward motion, but it can be challenging when I’m trying to let go. As always, self-awareness is critical.

Inspired by a wonderful Eggy show last night and several Easter events today, themes of rebirth and renewal have been echoing through my mind. I’m feeling hints of a new era. Phases shifting in work and life, and continuing recovery after some big health stuff. I’ve been holding on pretty tightly for the past few months, but I’m ready to start easing my grip: trusting the process, and appreciating the natural flow of this winding path, wherever it might lead.

May my RSS implementation honor the rebirth of an old-school cool. May I return to write more words worth syndicating, and may your feeds thrive regardless.

Why? I love making things with computers, but this practice is rapidly getting more and more abstract, and I’ve been missing the manual satisfaction of snapping things together at a low level. Don’t get me wrong, Codex built most of this site, but it’s been a fun challenge to develop enough understanding of DIY infrastructure to run diachrony.net and a growing garden of experiments from my closet. I’ll add more notes on how this all works as I keep learning and expanding on these projects.

I’m also interested in exploring self-hosting as a form of identity development. In the same way that language is thought, published material is identity in the modern world. And if the medium is the message, the channel I use for my published material might influence the way it feels to be me. I’m hoping that removing some corporate intermediation will make it more fun to be a human online again.

More thoughts to come, as always, but for now I’m going back to tinkering. Thanks for reading!