Domain Availability — RDAP registration check, no contact data

Give it domain names; it checks each against the registry's RDAP service (the protocol registries publish for this) and returns whether it is registered, and if so its status codes, registrar, creation and expiry dates and nameservers. Registrant, admin and technical contacts are never returned. Meant for checking names before registering them: at most 100 domains a run, one query a second per registry.

Development validation produced actual successful public-input records using the production Dockerfile and SDK entrypoint on GitHub-hosted Linux. The smoke input, all three tasks and every defined benchmark passed their exact expectations. The independent review completed on 2026-10-19; its findings are tracked in the committed fix report. Platform costs, settlement, publication and daily tests remain unverified.

Call it from an agent

Through Apify's MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com) use call-actor:

{
  "actor": "hermeskd/domain-availability",
  "input": {
    "domains": [
      "apify.com",
      "hermes-availability-probe-7f3k2q.com"
    ]
  },
  "callOptions": {
    "maxTotalChargeUsd": 0.05,
    "timeout": 600
  },
  "waitSecs": 30
}

Then call get-dataset-items with the returned defaultDatasetId. Dedicated tool URL: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=hermeskd/domain-availability

Input

Field	Type	Meaning
domains	array	Domain names, not URLs or IP addresses; internationalized names use IDNA.

Output

Field	Meaning
domain	Normalized input domain, or original invalid input.
ok	True only when the registry answered registered or unregistered.
available	True only for RDAP 404; false for registered; null for unanswered failures.
status	Registry domain status codes.
registrar	Explicit registrar organization only; formatted-person-name fields are not returned.
createdAt	Registry registration timestamp, when supplied.
expiresAt	Registry expiration timestamp, when supplied.
nameservers	Registry-provided nameserver names.
rdapServer	IANA-selected service base URL.
rdapTermsUrl	Explicit terms-of-service link from registry notices.
error	Failure, always uncharged.

Actual production-container record from 2026-10-18T20:22:57.533175+00:00 (code f063187693578dd7551fa2bec552281e2f0f3e33, smoke input, SDK local storage). The saved record is unchanged; local event logs do not prove Apify settlement.

{
  "domain": "apify.com",
  "ok": true,
  "available": false,
  "status": [
    "client transfer prohibited"
  ],
  "registrar": null,
  "createdAt": "2009-06-02T17:14:10Z",
  "expiresAt": "2035-06-02T17:14:10Z",
  "nameservers": [
    "ns-1225.awsdns-25.org",
    "ns-1928.awsdns-49.co.uk",
    "ns-449.awsdns-56.com",
    "ns-839.awsdns-40.net"
  ],
  "rdapServer": "https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/",
  "rdapTermsUrl": "https://www.verisign.com/domain-names/registration-data-access-protocol/terms-service/index.xhtml"
}

Events and prices

Event	Title	Charged when	FREE / BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND
domain-checked	Domain checked	One domain answered available or registered.	$0.001	$0.0009	$0.0008

Platform usage is not passed through. Apify's automatic actor-start event remains $0.00005 per started GB (one GB or less counts once). The synthetic dataset-item event is absent. Charge limits stop further paying work; unprocessed inputs receive uncharged errors. Completed readable pending events are settled on abort.

Worked cost example: ten successful primary events cost $0.01 at list, plus actor start. Failures are not included in that count.

Limits and run time

1–100 domains per run and at most one request per second per registry host. Registration-check purpose only: use this to consider registrations or modify existing registrations, not high-volume data mining. An unanswered domain has available=null and is uncharged. Only an explicit RDAP 404 answer means available=true. Its body is optional under RFC 7480 section 5.3; an empty answer is accepted only at the exact IANA-selected query URL without redirects. HTML or malformed replies remain uncharged failures. Registrar is returned only from explicit organization data; formatted person names and nested contact cards are omitted.

Default run timeout is 600 seconds. Typical cold platform time, costs and the smallest passing memory have not been measured for this new implementation. Memory probes are evidence to collect later; configured memories are specification defaults, not measured claims.

Errors

Code	Meaning
invalid_domain	Input is not a valid domain name.
tld_not_supported	IANA lists no RDAP service for the TLD.
rate_limited	The registry refused the check; availability remains unknown.
http_error	The source answered an unsuccessful HTTP status.
download_failed	The request or connection failed within its bounded deadline.
source_schema_changed	A source or tool response no longer has the verified protocol shape.
robots_disallowed	robots.txt forbids fetching the URL; no request was made to it.
blocked_host	The host is on the deny-list or resolves to a private or local address; no request was made.
too_large	A documented response, expansion or traversal cap was exceeded.
timeout	The input did not finish within the run's time budget.
invalid_input	The run input passed the input schema but cannot be used; the message names the field.
internal_error	Unexpected failure; the message carries the error class.
charge_limit_reached	The run reached its maximum total charge; this input was not processed.

No failure record is charged. A run fails only when all input outcomes are Actor-side failures; caller errors and a mixture of caller/Actor failures do not fail the run.

Sources and terms

Only process content you have the right to process. URL fetches obey HermesBot robots-group selection, the shared deny-list, public-address checks on connections and redirects, honest identity, deadlines and rate limits. No caller credentials, cookies, CAPTCHA solving, residential proxies or evasion. Use only to compare domain names before registration, at most 100 names per run and one request per second per registry server. IANA bootstrap selects the registry; no endpoint is guessed. Verisign terms exclude high-volume automation except reasonable registration needs. Registrant, administrative, technical and abuse contacts are omitted. Registrar is returned only from an explicit organization property, and may be null when the registry supplies only a formatted name. HTTP source probes verify 200/404 protocol shapes; they are not production-path Actor runs.

Not affiliated

This Actor is not affiliated with Google, Apify, IANA, Verisign or other named protocol/source providers. Third-party names describe compatibility and source material.

Related Hermes Actors

website-screenshot, lighthouse-audit, seo-page-audit, domain-availability, dns-and-email-auth, broken-links and sitemap-urls.

Changelog

2026-10-17 (historical): initial implementation and fixture contracts; packaging and public production validation were incomplete on that date.

2026-10-18: all six production images, public smoke inputs, three tasks per Actor and defined benchmarks passed on GitHub-hosted Linux; exact code, records and image provenance are retained with the examples. These local SDK runs do not prove platform costs, settlement, publication, minimum memory, daily tests or payouts.

2026-10-19: independent-review repairs cover DNS privacy, malformed publisher URLs, empty sitemap failures, responsive assets and schema prefill, as applicable to this Actor. See the committed unit 4 fix report for measured verification and remaining platform NO-COVERAGE.