Set up a custom domain

By default, your public help center lives at prod.atender.dev/knowledge/<your-tenant-slug>. That works, but most teams want it on a subdomain of their own — help.example.com or support.example.com. This walks through the setup.

You’ll need:

• Admin access in Atender.
• DNS access for the domain you’re connecting (typically your IT team or your DNS provider — Cloudflare, Route 53, GoDaddy, etc.).
• A few minutes for SSL provisioning, plus the time it takes your DNS to propagate.

1. Decide on the hostname

Pick a subdomain you control. Common choices:

• help.example.com
• support.example.com
• kb.example.com
• docs.example.com

The domain must be one you can add DNS records to. Atender doesn’t support apex domains (the bare example.com) — use a subdomain.

2. Add the domain in Atender

1. Go to Settings → Custom Domains.
2. Click Add domain.
3. Enter the hostname (e.g. help.example.com).
4. Set Product to Knowledge Base (the same surface also supports the Status page — pick the right one).
5. Click Save.

Atender provisions the underlying virtual host and shows you the DNS records you need to set.

3. Set the DNS record

Atender shows two records:

• CNAME (or ALIAS) for your hostname — Points your hostname at Atender’s edge.
• DCV record (DNS CNAME or TXT) — Used by the SSL certificate provider to verify you control the domain.

Copy both. Open your DNS provider, add both exactly as shown.

A few provider-specific notes:

• Cloudflare — set the proxy status to DNS only (gray cloud), not proxied. Atender provides its own edge.
• Route 53 — pick CNAME (not A alias) unless you’re at the apex (and you shouldn’t be — see step 1).
• GoDaddy — TTL of 600 or “1 hour” is fine. Avoid 24-hour TTLs while you’re setting things up.

4. Watch the status

Back in Atender, the domain row shows its current state:

• pending_dns — Atender is checking your DNS. Set the records and wait — propagation can take a few minutes to an hour.
• pending_ssl — DNS verified. The SSL certificate is being issued. Usually takes another few minutes.
• active — Done. The hostname is live and serving over HTTPS.
• failed — Something went wrong. Hover the status to see the failure reason — usually a typo in the DNS record.
• disabled — The domain was disabled in Atender. No traffic will be served.

Refresh the page periodically. Most domains move from pending_dns → active in 10–15 minutes.

5. Test it

Open https://help.example.com (or whatever hostname you chose). You should see your help center, on your domain, with a valid SSL certificate.

If you get a certificate warning, the cert hasn’t finished issuing — wait another minute and refresh.

Set the help center as the default for the domain

Once the domain is active, the help center serves at the root of that domain. There’s no path prefix — help.example.com/ lands directly on your homepage, /billing on the Billing category, /articles/<slug> on an article.

Removing a domain

In Settings → Custom Domains, click the domain and Remove. The hostname stops serving. Your help center is still accessible at the default prod.atender.dev/knowledge/<your-tenant-slug> URL.

Don’t forget to remove the DNS record at your provider — leaving stale CNAMEs is a security smell.

Common gotchas

• DNS not propagating. Use dig CNAME help.example.com or dig TXT _atender.example.com to verify the records exist. If your DNS provider has caching, give it 10 minutes.
• Cloudflare proxy on. If the proxy is enabled (orange cloud), Atender’s edge can’t terminate SSL. Switch to DNS only.
• HTTP redirects. All custom domains serve over HTTPS; HTTP is redirected. If you’re testing with http://, use https:// instead.
• Multiple environments. A custom domain points at one Atender tenant. Production domains target production; development tenants stay on the default URL.