gddy — GoDaddy domains & DNS CLI
gddy is GoDaddy's beta CLI for domain search, registration, and DNS management.
It's separate from GoDaddy's older godaddy CLI; it will eventually contain all of that same functionality.
Setup
Install:
# macOS / Linux / Git Bash / MSYS2 / Cygwin
curl -fsSL https://github.com/godaddy/cli/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash
# PowerShell
irm https://github.com/godaddy/cli/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex
Verify that installation works by running gddy --version.
Documentation
The gddy CLI is self-documenting. Use the following to get more information about its capabilities:
- The
--help flag will give you detailed documentation on any command.
gddy search <keywords> will help you find a command.- The
gddy tree command will give you a full listing of all commands.
- The
gddy guide command lets you view detailed documentation that explains concepts and outlines complex workflows.
Authentication
Interactive three-legged OAuth happens automatically if there is no auth token, if the auth token is expired, or if additional permissions are required. When you run a command that requires auth, it will open the user's web browser. You can list available OAuth scopes with gddy auth scopes then log them in with gddy auth login --scope <a> --scope <b> if you want to avoid multiple scope step-up interactions. Run gddy auth --help for more auth details or use gddy guide auth for a full walkthrough.
For non-interactive workflows, you can use a Personal Access Token (PAT) instead. A PAT can be generated by a GoDaddy customer at https://developer.godaddy.com/en/personal-access-token. It can be stored securely with gddy pat add or set in a GDDY_PAT environment variable.
Domain purchase
Domain purchase is a multi-step workflow. Run gddy guide domain-purchase for a detailed walkthrough. Always confirm with the user before finalizing a purchase — it's real money, and the action is not reversible.
DNS management
Valid record types: A AAAA ALIAS CAA CNAME MX NS SOA SRV TXT. NS and SOA are GoDaddy-managed and read-only — you can list them but not add/set/delete them.
gddy dns list example.com --type A
gddy dns add example.com --type A --name www --data 192.0.2.1 --ttl 3600
gddy dns set example.com --type TXT --name @ --data "v=spf1 -all"
gddy dns delete example.com --type A --name www
add appends a new record; set replaces every record matching that type+name; delete removes every record matching that type+name. Type-specific requirements: MX/SRV need --priority; SRV also needs --port, --weight, --protocol, --service; CAA requires --tag (--flag is optional).
set and delete are destructive. Run with --dry-run first and show the user what would change before applying it for real.
Payment Methods
gddy payment-methods add opens the browser to the account's payment-methods page — no card data is ever handled by the CLI itself. Purchases fail (403/422) without a valid payment method or sufficient account balance; check the error's code field, not just the HTTP status, to tell that apart from other failures.
Global flags
Use the --debug flag for verbose output, including the full HTTP request/response. Use --dry-run to see what would happen without making any changes. Humans see human-formatted output; use --human to see what they see in an interactive TTY. Non-TTY output uses --json formatting by default. Use --toon if you understand that format to save tokens. Use --env to override the default prod environment, or set it permanently with gddy env set <env>.
Reference material
Read these only when the task needs the detail — they're not needed for common domain/DNS operations:
reference/api.md — raw GoDaddy Domains API fallback (when gddy isn't installed/available, e.g. CI in a non-shell language): base URL/auth, the public OpenAPI specs to fetch and search directly, and the durable gotchas (idempotency keys on registration, the MCP server's read-only/no-auth scope).reference/errors-and-limits.md — error envelope shape, retry/idempotency rules per HTTP method, and rate-limit headers/handling.
