SkyScribe Sites

Launching & managing a site

Once you have a subscription, each of your SkyScribe Sites has its own page. Open Subscription from the side menu: under Your SkyScribe Sites there's a card for each one, showing what it looks like, its address and how it's doing. A card for a site you haven't set up yet says Set up this site (or Continue setup); a live one has Visit and Settings. Either way, the card opens the site's page.

Setting up a site

Before launch, a site's page walks you through three steps.

Design: choose one of your saved Design Configs. The picker shows each design's screenshots.
Publication: choose which Publication's content the site shows.
Address: enter a Subdomain. It becomes the site's address:
```
your-subdomain.skyscribe.site
```
A subdomain must be a valid single DNS label (lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens) and must be unique: you're told if one is already taken. If you have subdomains reserved from sites you removed, they're offered under the field; launching on one ends its reservation.

Each step gets a tick once it's done, and LAUNCH becomes available. Reusing one Design Config across several sites is fine.

If the Publication's own address (on its Config tab) isn't the one you're launching, LAUNCH offers to change it to the site's address, so other apps link your readers to it. See Your site's address in other apps.

LAUNCH publishes the site at that address. The site renders your Publication's published Documents using your Design Config; it updates as you publish, edit, and reorder content in that Publication. There's nothing to redeploy.

The page shows Setting up your site… for up to a minute after you launch: the first request to a brand-new address has to warm up before it responds. The clickable link appears once the site is actually live; if you open the address before then you may briefly see a "Bad Gateway" page. Wait a moment and refresh.

Launching also gives the Publication your Design Config's colours to share with other apps that show it, and keeps them up to date when you change or edit the design. See How your Publication looks in other apps.

Managing a live site

After launch, the site's page shows its settings:

Address: the site's link, Rename (below), and Your own domain (see Using your own domain).
Design and Publication: what the site shows, with Change design and Change Publication.
Last 7 days: page views and visits, with a link to the Publication's full Site analytics.
In other apps: Refresh theme and icon, if other apps show your Publication's old colours or icon.
Danger Zone: Remove, to stop the site at the end of the period (see Removing a SkyScribe Site).

Changing the design or Publication

Changing a live site asks first. Pick a design in the picker, and the button reads Apply to your site's address: visitors see the new design within about a minute. Preview with your content opens that design in the design wizard showing your own Publication's posts, so you can check it first.

Choosing another Publication changes everything the site shows: its address then shows the other Publication's posts, and links to the old one's posts at that address stop working. The picker says so before you apply it.

When changes show up

Readers get a copy of each page that's kept close to them, so your site opens quickly wherever they are. When you publish, edit or redesign, readers see the change within about a minute; the first reader after that may still get the previous version once while the new one is prepared.

You don't have to wait. Open your site from SkyScribe (the link on your Dashboard or on the site's page, or Visit On Site on a Document) and you see your latest changes straight away, at your site's normal address. For half an hour after that, every page you open on your site is shown fresh.

Renaming a site

Rename changes a live site's subdomain. It isn't a small change, and the dialog spells out what happens before you confirm:

The old address becomes the site's previous address. For 12 months, every link to it is redirected to the same page at the new address. After that it stops working, and someone else can take it.
Search engines take a while to catch up, and your pages may drop in search results meanwhile.
If your Publication used the old address, it moves to the new one, and other apps update their links as they re-read your records.

You can rename a site once every 30 days. Two exceptions: in the first day after launching, renaming doesn't count (for fixing a typo), and you can always rename back to the previous address. The site's page shows the previous address and, when the limit applies, when you can next rename.

Visit figures carry on across a rename: the site's analytics count both addresses while the old one redirects.

Using your own domain

A live site can be served from a domain you own, such as www.example.com or blog.example.com, instead of its skyscribe.site address. It's included with every SkyScribe Site. You need access to your domain's DNS settings, usually at the company you registered it with.

On the site's page, under Your own domain, enter the domain and click Connect. It shows Waiting for DNS and lists two records.
Where your domain's DNS is managed, add both:
- a TXT record, which proves the domain is yours. Its name starts with _skyscribe. and its value is unique to this site, so copy it exactly;
- a CNAME record for the domain itself, pointing at domains.skyscribe.site. If the domain already has a CNAME or A record (often www does), change that one rather than adding a second.
Each record shows ✓ Found once SkyScribe can see it. Once both are found, there's nothing more to do: SkyScribe gets a certificate for the domain and switches the site over by itself, usually within a few minutes. DNS changes can take a few hours to spread, and SkyScribe keeps checking for up to 7 days. You can leave the page meanwhile.

When the domain is Live:

It's the site's address. The skyscribe.site address keeps working: every link to it is redirected to the same page on your domain.
If your Publication used the site's address, it moves to your domain, and every post's link with it, so other apps send readers there. A Publication that points at a website of your own is left alone.
The site's analytics count visits to every address it has had, so the figures carry on.

A bare domain (example.com, with no www) usually can't have a CNAME record, and many registrars can't point one at SkyScribe at all. If yours offers an ALIAS, ANAME or CNAME flattening record, use that. Otherwise connect www.example.com instead, and set up forwarding from example.com to it where you registered the domain.

One domain per site. To change it, enter a new one: the current domain stays the site's address until the new one is Live. A domain can only be connected to one SkyScribe Site at a time.

If the domain stops pointing at SkyScribe (its DNS records changed or expired), the site's page shows DNS problem and readers can't reach the site there until it's fixed. It stays the site's address meanwhile, so fix the records, or disconnect it.

Disconnect puts the site back on its skyscribe.site address, and your Publication moves back with it. Your domain stops showing the site straight away and links to it aren't redirected, so remove its DNS records or point them somewhere else.

If the subscription ends, the domain stays connected and shows the paused page until you resubscribe. Removing the site disconnects it.

Your site's address in other apps

Other apps that read your Bluesky account link to your posts using your Publication's address, not the site's. If the two differ, those apps send your readers somewhere else, even though your site works.

So a live site's page checks them. When the Publication points at another skyscribe.site address, or at a placeholder, it shows Address mismatch (on the card too) with Use this site's address, which changes the Publication's address and updates every post's link. If the Publication points at a website of your own, which can be deliberate (one Publication shown on two websites), it shows a quieter note with the same button.

Running more than one site

Add a SkyScribe Site, the last card under Your SkyScribe Sites, adds another (through the same payment step) and then opens its page to set it up. Each site has its own Design Config, its own Publication and its own subdomain. Your pooled image quota grows with each one.

To remove a site, or cancel, see Changing or cancelling your subscription.

Once your site is live, Site analytics shows how it's being read.

That's the hosted path end to end. See Authoring for the content side, or Reference for the glossary and data model.

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