dibs

Call dibs on a name — check availability across domains, social media, package registries, and trademarks in one command.

dibs acme

dibs checks your name across 18+ platforms simultaneously and tells you what's available and what's taken. Optionally generate variants like useacme, acmehq, acmedev to find the best available version.

Install

npm install -g calldibs

Or run directly:

npx calldibs acme

Quick Start

# Check a name on all platforms
dibs acme

# Pass a domain — extracts the name and ensures that TLD is checked
dibs notion.so

# Interactive mode — prompts for everything
dibs

# Also check variants (useacme, acmehq, etc.)
dibs acme -v all

# Only check specific variant patterns
dibs acme -v hq,use,app

# Check specific platforms only
dibs acme -o github,npm,domain

# Check specific TLDs only
dibs acme -t com,ai,dev

# Output as JSON
dibs acme -f json

# Export as CSV
dibs acme -f csv > report.csv

Domain Input

Pass a full domain and dibs will do the right thing:

dibs notion.so

• Extracts the name (notion) and TLD (.so)
• Formats the name per platform: notionso for social handles, notion-so for package registries
• Ensures .so is always in the TLD check list
• Skips variant generation (you're checking a specific brand)
• .com is treated as a plain name — example.com just checks example

What It Checks

| Category | Platforms | Flag IDs | | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Domains | WHOIS lookup for any TLD | domain | | Social | GitHub, X/Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Ghost | github, twitter, instagram, linkedin, tiktok, youtube, reddit, ghost | | Packages | npm, npm org, PyPI, crates.io, RubyGems, Go (pkg.go.dev), Homebrew, Docker Hub | npm, npm-org, pypi, crates, rubygems, go, homebrew, dockerhub | | Legal | USPTO Trademark | trademark |

Default TLDs

.com, .dev, .io, .ai, .co, .app

Any valid IANA TLD is supported (1,400+). Just pass whatever you need via --tlds.

Variants

By default, only the exact name is checked. Use --variants / -v to also check common alternatives and find the best available version for your brand. Variants are disabled when passing a domain as input.

Prefixes: use___, get___, try___, go___, hey___, my___, the___, with___, on___, by___

Suffixes: ___hq, ___app, ___dev, ___io, ___labs, ___so, ___inc, ___co, ___team, ___run, ___now, ___ai, ___sh, ___cli, ___api, ___js

# Check all variants
dibs acme -v all

# Check specific patterns only
dibs acme -v hq,use,app

With -v all, checking acme also checks useacme, getacme, acmehq, acmeapp, acmedev, and 21 more variants. Each is scored and ranked.

Scoring & Recommendations

Each check result is one of three statuses:

| Status | Meaning | | ----------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | available | The name is not taken on that platform | | taken | The name is already registered/in use | | error | The check failed (rate limit, timeout, etc.) — does not penalize the score |

Platforms are weighted by importance to a business:

| Weight | Platforms | | -------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | | 15× | .com domain | | 12× | USPTO Trademark | | 8× | X / Twitter | | 7× | Instagram, LinkedIn | | 6× | GitHub, .ai domain | | 5× | TikTok, YouTube, .com-adjacent domains | | 4× | Reddit, .co, .app domains | | 2-3× | Package registries (npm, npm org, PyPI, crates.io, etc.) | | 2× | Ghost |

The weighted score produces a verdict:

| Score | Verdict | | ----- | ------------------------------------------------- | | ≥ 80% | 🎉 Great — widely available, grab it now | | ≥ 60% | 👍 Good — solid choice with minor conflicts | | ≥ 35% | 🤔 Fair — notable gaps, consider a variant | | < 35% | 👎 Poor — largely taken, try a different name |

Output Formats

Pretty (default)

Human-readable report with colors, progress bars, and grouped results:

dibs acme

Shows a variant ranking table, detailed per-platform results for the best variant, and a recommendation with actionable details.

JSON

dibs acme -f json

{
  "recommendation": {
    "verdict": "poor",
    "summary": "\"acme\" is largely taken. Try a different name or variant.",
    "details": [
      "✗ .com domain is taken — consider a variant or alternative TLD",
      "✗ Only 2/8 social handles available — branding will be inconsistent",
      "◐ 5/8 package registries available",
      "⚠ Possible USPTO trademark conflict — consult a lawyer before proceeding"
    ]
  },
  "best": {
    "name": "acme",
    "pattern": "bare",
    "score": 28,
    "available": 10,
    "taken": 14,
    "errors": 0,
    "total": 24,
    "results": [
      {
        "platform": "Domain acme.com",
        "status": "taken",
        "url": "https://acme.com",
        "message": null
      },
      {
        "platform": "GitHub",
        "status": "taken",
        "url": "https://github.com/acme",
        "message": null
      },
      {
        "platform": "npm",
        "status": "available",
        "url": "https://www.npmjs.com/package/acme",
        "message": null
      }
    ]
  },
  "variants": [
    {
      "name": "acme",
      "pattern": "bare",
      "score": 28,
      "available": 10,
      "taken": 14,
      "errors": 0,
      "total": 24
    }
  ]
}

Pipe to jq for extraction:

# Get the best variant name
dibs acme -f json | jq -r '.best.name'

# List all available platforms for the best variant
dibs acme -f json | jq '.best.results[] | select(.status == "available") | .platform'

# Get all variant scores
dibs acme -v all -f json | jq '.variants[] | {name, score}'

CSV

dibs acme -f csv > report.csv

variant,pattern,platform,status,url,message
acme,bare,Domain acme.com,taken,https://acme.com,
acme,bare,GitHub,taken,https://github.com/acme,
acme,bare,npm,available,https://www.npmjs.com/package/acme,

CLI Reference

dibs [OPTIONS] [NAME]

| Flag | Short | Description | | ------------ | ----- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | NAME | | The name or domain to check (omit for interactive mode) | | --only | -o | Platforms to check (comma-separated) | | --tlds | -t | TLDs to check (comma-separated, e.g. com,ai,dev) | | --variants | -v | Enable variants: all for every pattern, or comma-separated list (e.g. hq,use,app) | | --format | -f | Output format: pretty, json, or csv (default: pretty) | | --help | -h | Show help with full documentation | | --version | | Show version number |

Interactive Mode

Run dibs with no arguments to enter interactive mode. You'll be prompted to:

1. Enter the name
2. Select which platforms to check
3. Select which TLDs to check
4. Choose whether to generate variants and which patterns to use

Your selections are saved between sessions — next time you run dibs, your previous choices are pre-selected.

Non-Interactive Mode

Pass the name as a positional argument. All options can be set via flags. This is ideal for scripts, CI, and LLM tool use.

# Minimal — just check npm and GitHub for one name
dibs myproject -o npm,github -f json

# Full sweep with JSON output
dibs myproject -f json

# Full sweep with variants
dibs myproject -v all -f json

# Narrow check — just domains
dibs myproject -o domain -t com,dev,ai,app -f json

# Check a specific domain
dibs open.ai -f json

Error Handling

Every platform check is wrapped in error handling. If a check fails (network timeout, rate limit, service down), it returns { status: "error" } with a message instead of crashing. Errors do not count against the score — they reduce the total possible score so your recommendation isn't unfairly penalized.

The CLI always exits with code 0 when given valid arguments, regardless of check failures.

How It Works

1. Input parsing — if the input is a domain (e.g. notion.so), extracts the name and TLD, formats per platform
2. Name cleaning — the input is lowercased and stripped to [a-z0-9-]
3. Variant generation — prefixes and suffixes are applied to create alternatives (when -v is used, disabled for domain inputs)
4. Parallel checking — all variants × all platforms are checked concurrently
5. Scoring — each variant gets a weighted score based on platform importance
6. Recommendation — variants are ranked by score, the best is highlighted with a verdict

Development

git clone https://github.com/avigoldman/dibs
cd dibs
npm install

# Run in development
npm run dev

# Type check
npx tsc --noEmit

# Unit tests (114 tests, mocked, fast)
npm test

# Integration tests (real network calls)
npm run test:integration

# Build
npm run build

# Link globally for local use
npm link

License

MIT