Answer
Free DNS API for AI agents, with no account
Create a workspace with one unauthenticated POST and you can write DNS records straight away — A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, with TTL and priority — on zones in that workspace. It is free, it is not behind the payment gate, and it needs no card anywhere in the account, because a zone costs us close to nothing to serve. The only part of the domain lifecycle that costs money is registering the name itself.
$ curl -s https://api.slipdock.ai/v1/dns/example.com/records -H "$AUTH" \ -d '{"type":"A","name":"@","content":"203.0.113.10","ttl":300}' {"id":"rec_8c21","state":"live"} $ curl -s https://api.slipdock.ai/v1/dns/example.com/records -H "$AUTH" \ -d '{"type":"TXT","name":"_acme-challenge","content":"nR7...","ttl":60}' $ curl -s https://api.slipdock.ai/v1/dns/example.com/records -H "$AUTH" [{"type":"A","name":"@",...},{"type":"TXT",...}]
Why free
Two reasons, and the second is the honest one. A zone genuinely costs us almost nothing to serve. And an agent whose first action succeeds without asking anyone for money is an agent that comes back — free DNS is the cheapest acquisition instrument we have, and it hooks the workflow before any payment exists. We would rather say that than describe it as generosity.
What is and is not free
| Action | Cost | Human needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Create a zone in your workspace | free | no |
| Create, edit, delete records | free | no |
| Read the zone | free | no |
| Point a zone at an app in one call | free | no |
| Domain availability search | free | no |
| Register the domain name itself | at cost, from $10.44/yr | once, by email |
Using it for ACME / certificate validation
The common agent need is a TXT record for a DNS-01 challenge, and that is a single free call with a short TTL. Because writing records requires no payment, an agent can complete a certificate issuance flow for a domain in the workspace without ever touching the money path.
Honest limitations right now
- Public delegation is not finished. Records resolve against our nameserver in staging, but the public ns1/ns2 delegation is not complete, and today there is only one nameserver where registries generally want two on distinct addresses.
- DNSSEC is planned, not shipped.
- Zones are scoped to the workspace. This is authoritative DNS for domains you hold here, not a general-purpose DNS host for names registered elsewhere — that is on the roadmap, not in the product.
If you need production DNS this week, use a provider that has finished those things. Our full build status is here, and it is deliberately specific.
Related questions
Do I need to buy a domain from Slipdock to use the DNS?
Today, yes — zones are scoped to domains held in the workspace. Accepting externally registered names is roadmap, not product, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
Which record types are supported?
A, AAAA, CNAME, MX and TXT with TTL and priority, which covers essentially everything an agent wiring up an app or a certificate needs.
Is there a rate limit?
Yes, and it is generous for legitimate use. Search in particular is cached because upstream registries police it and we pass that on. Write records as you need them; do not poll a zone in a tight loop.