glebis/name-audition

Name Audition — «Кастинг имён»

Audition candidate names before you cast one. Brandability is not availability, and a free domain is not a safe name — the audition separates the three. Candidates try out; the best one gets cast; the rest simply don't make the cut.

The core lesson this skill encodes

A name can sound perfect, score well, have every domain free — and still be the wrong choice. Three ways a candidate fails its screen test, worst first:

1. Adjacent-domain collision is the worst kind. A product already operating in the target vertical means a name doesn't make the cut even when the string is free to register — confusion and SEO dilution are fatal in the same space.
2. Descriptive / generic names are domain-free but weak. Easy to register, hard to own — bad for trademark, bad for SEO, easy for competitors to crowd.
3. Search visibility ≠ availability. "I didn't see it in results" is not proof a name is free. Verify with authoritative sources before casting.

Workflow — the casting call

Run these stages in order. Stages 3a and 3b run together.

1. Brief. Establish: (a) what is being named (product / app / company / feature / benchmark), (b) scope + one-line description, (c) the adjacent domain — the vertical it lives in (healthcare, coaching, privacy/security, dev tooling); the user supplies this, (d) tone / vibe, (e) which TLDs matter (default .com .org .ai .io .app .co). If (a)–(c) is missing, ask first — the adjacent domain is what makes collision research meaningful.
2. The audition. Generate 4–8 candidate names matching the tone. Favor short, pronounceable, ownable coinages over descriptive compounds. Note for each what it means / why it fits.
3. The screen test (run 3a and 3b together):
   • 3a — Domains (authoritative). Run scripts/check_domains.sh NAME [NAME ...] -- com ai io ... for a name × TLD availability table. WHOIS no-match + no NS = registrable; Creation Date / Registrar / NS present = taken; ambiguous = verify by hand. Authoritative for registration, never for trademark.
   • 3b — Collision research. For each candidate, use the firecrawl skill or web search (never beautifulsoup) to check the sources below.
4. Callbacks. Build a per-candidate risk table and rank by safety + ownability.
5. Casting report. Use the present skill to build an interactive HTML deck — one slide per finalist plus a ranked comparison and a "cast it?" slide.
6. Branding (optional, gated). Only if the user wants it: draft a wordmark/logo per finalist with nano-banana or gpt-image-2 (draft quality), embed in the slides.
7. Cast → user decides. Give a clear top pick with reasoning; the user makes the final call. Names that fail "didn't make the cut" — never "killed".

Stage 3b — collision research checklist

For each candidate, search these surfaces and record URLs:

• SaaS / AI / startups — Crunchbase, Product Hunt, a plain web search of "<name>" + vertical.
• Code namespace — GitHub repos literally named it; PyPI and npm packages with that exact name.
• The adjacent domain (most important) — "<name>" + the user's vertical. A same-vertical hit is the one that ends an audition.
• Privacy / security tooling — relevant if the thing touches data handling.
• Trademark + ownability — a light USPTO / EUIPO look for live marks in the relevant classes, plus a judgment call on descriptiveness: distinctive enough to own, or a generic compound a competitor can crowd?
• Benchmark names — if naming a benchmark, the decisive check is the literature, not domains: is the name already a published dataset/benchmark (arXiv / ACL / Papers with Code)? Citation clash, not a domain, is what matters there.

Output table:

| Name | Notable existing uses (URLs) | Adjacent-domain clash? | Trademark / ownability | Verdict | |---|---|---|---|---| | Acme | github.com/x, acme.io (logistics) | No | Distinctive, no live marks | Callback |

Verdict is Callback (advances) / Cut (out) / Cast (the pick). Apply the Decision rules.

Decision rules

• Adjacent-domain collision → Cut. Even if every domain is free. A competing product in the same vertical poisons the name.
• Descriptive / generic compound → weak. Domains may be free, but hard to trademark and bad for SEO. Flag the ownability risk even when registrable.
• Domains-free ≠ safe. Availability is necessary, not sufficient. A name earns the part only when it is both registrable and clear of adjacent-domain and trademark collisions.
• Verify before casting. Confirm domains with check_domains.sh and trademark with a registry lookup, not with "I didn't find anything."
• Rank by safety first, then ownability, then aesthetics.

Example (a real audition)

Naming a privacy-focused de-id toolkit + benchmark for the mental-health / coaching vertical. Audition: Praxio, Dyad, Sessio, ClientPII, CONFIDE.

| Name | Screen test | Verdict | |---|---|---| | Praxio | Sounded great, but Praxis EMR is a mental-health EHR — adjacent-domain collision in the exact vertical. | Cut | | Dyad | Clean, meaningful, but dyad.sh is a local-AI dev tool and dyad.ai is a healthcare company — collisions in both tech and the vertical. | Cut | | Sessio | Nice, but sessio.base44.app is a same-vertical product for therapists. | Cut | | ClientPII | All TLDs free — but a generic descriptive compound, weak to trademark, bad SEO. | Didn't make the cut (as a brand) | | CONFIDE | Domains all taken (bad product brand) — but as a benchmark name, citation-collision is low. | Cast (as the benchmark name) |

One line: domains-free ≠ safe, and brandable ≠ available. Most names that look good fail on adjacent-domain collisions a domain check alone would never catch.

scripts/check_domains.sh

scripts/check_domains.sh praxio dyad sessio          # default TLDs (.com .org .ai .io .app .co)
scripts/check_domains.sh praxio dyad -- com ai io     # custom TLDs after a --
TLDS="com org ai" scripts/check_domains.sh praxio     # or via env

Per domain it runs whois (following the IANA registry referral when needed) plus dig +short NS, printing a name × TLD table of free / taken / ?. ? = verify by hand (WHOIS rate-limit or .ai flakiness). Needs whois and dig on PATH (ship with macOS; apt install whois dnsutils).

Referenced skills

• firecrawl — collision / literature research (stage 3b). Never beautifulsoup.
• present — interactive HTML casting report (stage 5). Pass it the comparison + per-name slides.
• nano-banana or gpt-image-2 — optional draft branding (stage 6). Draft quality by default.

Safety & limits

• WHOIS is authoritative for registration, not trademark. A free domain can still infringe a live mark. Always do the separate trademark read.
• .ai WHOIS is flaky. Treat ? as "check the registrar's search," not "free."
• The script proves registrability, not legal clearance — no trademarks, social handles, or app-store conflicts. For a name you'll build a business on, get an attorney's clearance.
• Branding is optional and gated — generate logos only when the user asks; draft quality unless told otherwise.
• The user casts. The skill recommends; it does not commit.

Install

Portable across Claude Code and Codex — plain-prose workflow, one bash script, no Claude-only tools.

cp -R name-audition ~/.claude/skills/   # Claude Code
cp -R name-audition ~/.agents/skills/   # Codex