namecheap-cli

A fast, ergonomic Rust-based command-line interface (CLI) for Namecheap to manage domains, DNS records, and account settings.

Features

• Domain Availability: Check availability and premium pricing for multiple domains simultaneously.
• Domain Management: List all registered domains in your account, filter by search term, sort, and inspect domain details (status, expiration, nameservers, WhoisGuard).
• DNS Records Management:
  • List host records (A, AAAA, CNAME, TXT, MX, etc.).
  • Add and delete DNS host records.
  • Switch between Namecheap BasicDNS and custom nameservers.
• Credential & Config Management: Store credentials securely in local configuration or supply them via environment variables or CLI flags.
• IP Detection Utility: Quick helper command (namecheap-cli ip) to detect your public IP address for Namecheap API IP whitelisting.
• Scripting & Automation Ready: Output any command formatted as structured JSON with --json.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust (1.80+ recommended)

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/SpaceCorps/namecheap-cli.git
cd namecheap-cli
cargo build --release

The binary will be located at target/release/namecheap-cli.

Setup & Authentication

Namecheap API requires three credentials:

1. API Username
2. API Key (generated under Namecheap Profile -> Tools -> Business & Dev Tools -> Namecheap API Access)
3. Whitelisted Client IP (Namecheap enforces IP whitelisting)

1. Check your public IP

namecheap-cli ip

Add this IP to your Namecheap Whitelisted IPs in the dashboard.

2. Configure credentials

Save credentials once:

namecheap-cli config set --api-user <YOUR_USER> --api-key <YOUR_KEY> --client-ip <YOUR_IP>

Or use environment variables:

export NAMECHEAP_API_USER="your-username"
export NAMECHEAP_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export NAMECHEAP_CLIENT_IP="your-public-ip"
export NAMECHEAP_SANDBOX="false"

To view current settings:

namecheap-cli config show

Usage

Domain Availability Check

# Check availability of one or more domains
namecheap-cli domains check example.com mycoolapp.io rustacean.dev

# JSON output
namecheap-cli domains check example.com --json

List Registered Domains

# List domains
namecheap-cli domains list

# Filter and paginate
namecheap-cli domains list --search "myproject" --page 1 --page-size 50

Domain Details

namecheap-cli domains info example.com

DNS Records

# List DNS host records
namecheap-cli dns list example.com

# Add an A record
namecheap-cli dns add example.com --name "@" --type "A" --address "192.0.2.1" --ttl 1800

# Add a CNAME record
namecheap-cli dns add example.com --name "www" --type "CNAME" --address "example.com."

# Delete a record
namecheap-cli dns delete example.com --name "www" --type "CNAME"

# Point to custom nameservers (Cloudflare, Route53, etc.)
namecheap-cli dns set-custom example.com --nameservers "ns1.example.com,ns2.example.com"

# Reset to Namecheap default DNS
namecheap-cli dns set-default example.com

Using Sandbox

To test commands against the Namecheap Sandbox API, pass the --sandbox flag or set --sandbox true in config set:

namecheap-cli --sandbox domains check sandbox-test-123.com

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.