Namestead

The problem

New developers can build the thing and still stall at the checkout page. A domain, DNS and hosting cost money before anyone has seen the work. Namestead gives them a free subdomain on a domain the community owns, like yourname.devportfolio.com, live in seconds.

How it works

1. Sign in with GitHub, Google or an email link.

2. Claim a name on one of the catalog domains.

3. Point it somewhere: park it, redirect it, proxy a live server once you prove you own it, or set your own DNS records.

Architecture

TypeScript end to end, in one pnpm and Turborepo monorepo:

• web and admin: two Next.js 16 apps, so staff tools have their own auth boundary and deploy.

• workers: a Fastify control plane with the internal and admin APIs, and pg-boss jobs on Postgres.

• edge: a Node router and proxy behind Caddy that answers for every catalog subdomain. Caddy handles TLS with wildcard certificates.

• packages: shared logic (slugs, routes, the IP classifier), the Prisma schema, and an SSRF-guarded networking package.

At launch it all runs on one server from one Docker Compose file, with Postgres on the box and WAL backups to S3. More regions can come later without changing the shape.

Decisions worth explaining

No network store on the hot path. The edge reads an in-memory route table pushed from Postgres instead of asking Redis on every request. Redis waits until the user API actually needs rate limiting.

An SSRF guard before any proxying. Proxy mode accepts any HTTP(S) origin, including a self-hosted IP:port, so private and reserved addresses are refused every time, in one shared package.

Trust is earned, not bought. Accounts earn Trust Points across five tiers named after how DNS resolves a name: Ping, Resolver, Authority, Registry and Root. The tier decides how many names you get and whether you can proxy a live server. Money earns a supporter badge, never the top two tiers.

A public ledger from the first rupee. Every contribution and expense is recorded with its evidence, and the site says plainly what Namestead is and what it isn't.

one box at launch, more regions later.

Where it is now

The backend and the dashboard are built. What's left is the launch checklist: the public policy pages, payments, and the first catalog domains.