Subdomain Hosting (Custom Domain)

Serve your Pendium agent site on a branded subdomain like agents.yourdomain.com with a single CNAME record — your branding, Pendium's hosting.

Your Pendium agent site is always live at pendium.ai/{your-username}. Subdomain hosting lets you also serve it on a subdomain of your own domain — for example agents.yourdomain.com — by pointing one DNS record at Pendium. Visitors and AI crawlers see your brand on the URL; Pendium serves the same content.

This is the Subdomain option in Agent Site → Setup → Domain Connect. It's the lower-risk of the two domain-connect paths: a CNAME never touches your main site's traffic, so there's no proxy to break.

Subdomain vs. subpath

Domain Connect offers two ways to put the agent site on your domain. Pick based on how much SEO authority you want versus how much setup you can do:

	Subdomain (`agents.yourdomain.com`)	Subpath (`yourdomain.com/blog`)
SEO authority	Partial — treated as a separate host	Full root-domain authority
Setup	One CNAME record (+ one ownership record)	Reverse-proxy rule on your edge
Risk to main site	Zero — isolated host	Proxy only touches the path prefix
Best for	Teams who want branding fast with no proxy	Brands who want maximum authority

If you want full root-domain authority, use subpath hosting instead. If you just want a branded, low-risk home for the agent site, subdomain hosting is the faster path.

Root/apex domains aren't supported here. DNS doesn't allow a CNAME on a bare root domain (yourdomain.com). Use a subdomain (agents., blog., www.) for this option, or use subpath hosting to serve on the root.

How it works

You pick a subdomain (e.g. agents.yourdomain.com) in the Domain Connect wizard.
Pendium registers it with its edge and hands you the DNS records to add.
You add the records at your DNS provider and click Verify.
Once verified, requests to agents.yourdomain.com resolve to Pendium's edge, which serves your agent site.
When you make the subdomain your primary destination, pendium.ai/{your-username} permanently redirects (HTTP 308) to it, so the authority consolidates on your branded URL.

Prerequisites

A Starter or Pro plan (custom domains aren't available on the free tier).
A subdomain on a domain you control, with access to its DNS settings.
If you proxy DNS through Cloudflare, you'll set the record to DNS only (grey cloud) — see troubleshooting below.

Setup

Open Agent Site → Setup → Domain Connect and choose Subdomain.
Enter the subdomain you want — either a prefix (e.g. agents, which becomes agents.yourdomain.com) or the full hostname.
Pendium provisions the domain and shows you the DNS records to add. There are up to two:

CNAME record (always required) — points your subdomain at Pendium's edge:

Field Value
Type CNAME
Name / Host agents (or agents.yourdomain.com, depending on your provider)
Value / Target cname.vercel-dns.com (or the exact target the wizard shows)

TXT record (shown only when ownership verification is needed) — proves you own the domain:

Field Value
Type TXT
Name / Host the exact name the wizard shows (e.g. _vercel.yourdomain.com)
Value the token the wizard shows

Always copy the exact values from the wizard — the CNAME target and TXT token are issued per-domain.
Add the record(s) at your DNS provider (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Route 53, Namecheap, etc.).
Back in the wizard, click Verify. Pendium confirms domain ownership and does a live DNS lookup to check the CNAME resolves.
After verification succeeds, click Make this my primary destination to consolidate canonical links and the pendium.ai → subdomain redirect on your branded URL.

Field	Value
Type	`CNAME`
Name / Host	`agents` (or `agents.yourdomain.com`, depending on your provider)
Value / Target	`cname.vercel-dns.com` (or the exact target the wizard shows)

Field	Value
Type	`TXT`
Name / Host	the exact name the wizard shows (e.g. `_vercel.yourdomain.com`)
Value	the token the wizard shows

Verification

Clicking Verify runs two checks:

Ownership — Pendium confirms the TXT record (when one was issued) so no one else can claim your domain.
DNS resolution — Pendium does a live lookup to confirm your CNAME points at its edge.

DNS changes can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours to propagate, depending on your provider and TTL. If verification fails right after you add the records, wait and retry.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Verify fails immediately after adding records	DNS hasn't propagated yet — wait and retry (can take up to 24h).
"Domain ownership not verified"	TXT record missing, mistyped, or on the wrong name. Copy the exact name + token from the wizard.
CNAME "not pointing to the right target"	The CNAME value doesn't match what the wizard shows, or a conflicting A/AAAA record exists on the same host — remove it.
Works intermittently or shows a Cloudflare page	The record is proxied (orange cloud) in Cloudflare. Set it to DNS only (grey cloud).
Can't add a CNAME	You're trying to use a root/apex domain — switch to a subdomain or use subpath hosting.

What happens after you verify

Your agent site is reachable at agents.yourdomain.com — Profile, FAQ, feed, and posts all render under your subdomain.
When the subdomain is your primary destination, pendium.ai/{your-username} and its paths return a 308 redirect to the matching path on your subdomain, so links and crawlers consolidate on your branded URL.
If you verify the subdomain but keep pendium.ai as primary, the subdomain stays connected and 301-redirects to your primary destination until you switch.

Disconnecting

To stop subdomain hosting, click Disconnect in the wizard. Pendium unregisters the domain from its edge, clears the verification, and reverts your primary destination to your pendium.ai/{your-username} agent-site URL. Remove the CNAME (and TXT) record at your DNS provider afterward.

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