How to Use Your Domain on Bluesky

Bluesky is a hot new social networking platform that functions like Twitter from Twitter’s original founder. New users are flooding into the platform as a respite from Elon Musk’s vision of Twitter and the fumbles that have happened since his takeover. Upon signing up for Bluesky, your username defaults to {yourdesiredhandle}.bsky.social, but there’s a better and more secure option.

One of Bluesky’s awesome features is the ability to base your username on a hostname’s DNS record. In short, if you control a hostname’s DNS, you can essentially verify yourself. For example, my Bluesky username is davidwalsh.name. Let’s look at how you can base your username after a domain you control!

Change Your Handle to Your Domain

Go to Bluesky’s Settings page and click “change my handle”

A modal will display where you can simply change the handle but you’ll want to click “I have my own domain”:

Another modal will follow asking for the domain you’d like to use and provides you with a TXT DNS record entry you need to create on that domain’s DNS:

*The DNS record above is a sample value, so I haven’t exposed any sensitive information*

With the record information provided by Bluesky, go to your DNS provider and add the TXT record with the value provided by Bluesky. After adding the record, click Verify DNS Record back at Bluesky. Once Bluesky verifies the record, your username will then be your domain!

I’m an Impostor
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write, much less admit to myself. I’ve written resignation letters from jobs I’ve loved, I’ve ended relationships, I’ve failed at a host of tasks, and let myself down in my life. All of those feelings were very…