help.yourdomain.com — instead of the default address on theabot.com. A subdomain is the recommended setup: it is short, easy for members to remember, and leaves your root domain for your primary site. Thea handles SSL certificate provisioning and renewal automatically, so your team only needs to add two DNS records and check the status. Custom domains are available on Pro and Business plans.
Requirements
- Plan: Pro or Business
- Access to your domain’s DNS settings (through your registrar or DNS provider, e.g., Cloudflare, Route 53, Namecheap)
Set up your custom domain
1
Open the help center settings
In the Thea dashboard, go to Settings → Help center.
2
Enter your subdomain
Type the full subdomain you want to use, for example
help.yourdomain.com, and click Connect. Use a subdomain: most DNS providers cannot put a CNAME record on a root domain.3
Create the DNS records
The Custom domain card shows two records to create with your DNS provider:
Many DNS providers want only the part before your root domain in the Name field, for example
help and _thea-verify.help. Save both records.4
Check the status
Return to Settings → Help center and click Check status. The card shows Waiting for DNS, Verifying, Active, or Failed.
5
Go live with automatic HTTPS
The domain becomes Active only once its DNS actually points at Thea, not as soon as the TXT record is found. From then on, your help center is served at your custom domain with a valid SSL certificate, and article links and Thea’s citations in Discord use it. Thea renews the certificate automatically before it expires.
How the default address behaves
Your help center always has a built-in address attheabot.com/help/<your-center>. Once your custom domain is Active, the built-in address permanently redirects to it.
If the custom domain stops resolving to Thea, or you click Remove, article links and citations go back to the built-in address.
Who can claim a domain
A domain can belong to only one active help center. Connecting a domain does not reserve it: the first help center to verify it gets it. If another help center verified the domain first, Check status says so and the domain does not become active for you.DNS propagation
DNS changes can take up to 24–48 hours to propagate across all global resolvers. Until the domain is Active, visitors keep using the built-in address, so no one gets a broken link while propagation completes. If Check status still shows Waiting for DNS right after you add the records, wait 15–30 minutes and try again. If it still fails after several hours, check that the Name field does not repeat your root domain. Enteringhelp.yourdomain.com where the provider expects help creates a record like help.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com.