Now Domains in the Command Line

Zeit.co’s now lets you buy domains through the CLI. Pretty nifty, but missing some crucial affordances that make it less usable than an online interface.

Making a purchase request

Making a request is very easy—you enter the domain name, it shows you if it available, and the action you want to take, with the default action being the safe one and asking for affirmative confirmation to complete the purchase.

Terminal with command entered to purchase 'my-now-domain.xyz', showing that it's available in the second line, with a yes/no prompt to purchase it for $1 in the third line.

So far so good.

Approving the request

Things get tricky at this point.
As the purchase is confirmed, the pricing information is lost. CLI apps usually have the tendency to go to the next line as an action is taken, but NOW Domains changes the line

Third line from the screen above has been replaced with a dynamic loading indicator and 'Purchasing' label, removing pricing info.

Completed purchase

And when the purchase is completed, there is absolutely no information to show how much it is purchased for. With any purchase of any kind, the confirmation text should include what a user bought, and for how much.

Third line changes once more, to be appended with 'Success! Domain purchased and created' text and 'You may use your domain as an alias to your deployments' help text. Pricing info not given.

As this is a command line app, not changing the lines that showed up would have sufficed to satisfy the need for information. Alas, by modernizing the command line, they’ve removed some of the major benefits of it.