App domains

An app domain is a hostname of your own that serves one of your workspace's apps, with short, clean addresses:

• Go Links answers on it with no /go: go.example.com/roadmap goes where roadmap points, which makes it the address to put on posters and slides.
• Dory's events are at addresses like events.example.com/events/…, and the join links and QR codes shared from the hostname point to it.
• Every other app works the same way, with its pages on the hostname.

Once a hostname is saved, emails, Slack messages, the REST API and AI assistants hand out the app's addresses on it. Settings, billing, the workspace's home and the other apps stay on Taktoria's own address. Each app can have one hostname.

Only a workspace owner or admin can give an app a hostname.

1. Open Settings → App domains.
2. Under the app, enter the Hostname, such as go.example.com, and select Save.
3. Add the DNS record it then shows, wherever your domain's DNS is kept (see below).
4. Give it a few minutes. The line under the hostname says how far along it is, and Check again looks straight away.

A hostname serves one app in one workspace: one already pointed at another workspace, or already serving another app, is refused.

Saving the hostname does nothing on its own: the record shown beside it is what points it at Taktoria. It is a CNAME for a hostname under your domain, such as go.example.com, and an A record for a domain's root, such as example.com. Its name is shown the short way most DNS providers ask for it, go, or @ for the root, with its value beside it.

If the hostname has been used with our hosting provider before, a TXT record is asked for too, to prove it is yours to use.

Behind Cloudflare, set the record to DNS only (the grey cloud). Proxied, the traffic never reaches Taktoria and the certificate cannot be issued.

Once the record is in place, the certificate for the hostname is issued automatically: there is nothing to upload or renew. The line under the hostname then says it is working, and the record is no longer shown, though it has to stay in your DNS.

Until then, the line says what it is waiting for: the DNS record to reach us, or the TXT record to verify the hostname. If it says the hostname is not set up with our host, save it again.

People sign in on the hostname and stay there. Anybody already signed in to Taktoria is signed in on the hostname without being asked again, and signing out of either signs out of both.

The sign-in page on the hostname carries your workspace's name, and its icon when one is uploaded; with whitelabelling on, its header does too. It offers only the ways in your workspace allows: Google alone when it requires Google, and single sign-on only when it has a provider. There is no sign-up there: people join a workspace by invitation.

Some pages on a hostname are for people outside your workspace too, who never need an account:

• Go Links: each link chooses who can follow it, under Who can follow it in its form. People at certain email domains, the default, lets in members and anybody who proves an address at a domain on your workspace's list in Settings → Domains, with Continue with Google or Email me a code. Members of this workspace lets in members only, and Anyone with the link lets in everybody, which the form warns you about. Until somebody has proved an address, a link they may not follow looks exactly like one that does not exist.
• Dory: attendees join an event on the hostname, and its Who can join decides who gets in, as on Taktoria's own address. An event for People at certain email domains asks for an address at one of them at the door, and shows its title only to the people it lets in.

A proved address lasts 30 days in that browser. See Go Links and Dory for more.

To move an app to another hostname, save the new one in its place: the old one stops serving it. To stop altogether, select the button under the hostname that stops serving it, in Settings → App domains.

The app is then reached on Taktoria's own address again, and the addresses on the old hostname that were handed out, such as go links on posters and Dory join links, stop working. Remove the DNS record once you no longer need it.

• It has been waiting for DNS a long while: check the record's name and value against the ones shown, and that it is not proxied. Some DNS providers take a few hours.
• A page opened on Taktoria's own address: settings, billing and the other apps always open there; the app's own pages stay on the hostname.
• A visitor is asked to sign in, not to prove an address: the link is for Members of this workspace, or your workspace's list in Settings → Domains is empty.