How to setup custom domain in Hashnode?

The Backstory

I came across Google Domains because of the discount they gave in one of the conferences I attended. Registering a domain looks so complicated when I did some research. Or was it just overwhelming?

My first domain just sat there unused for around 2 years. 😔 Well, I did try to connect it to an AWS instance while trying to learn about certificates...

Stuck again for a few days

There's a pretty good instruction on how to set up the custom domain. But then, I encountered an error in Google Domains.

CNAME records for the root domain are not supported

What worked?

1. Set the host name to blog and the value to hashcode.network

2. Then use the same value in Hashnode

What I just realized? 💭

I first saw the following and immediately went on with it. Use @ it said...

It's not recommended to use CNAME at the root level.

Turns out the instructions were actually dynamic. When I changed to blog.reiopd.com, it also changed to set the host name to blog instead of @.

So all along, maybe I had it backwards. 😹