Setting Up Custom Domains for Lovable Projects

Why custom domain setup fails or shows errors in Lovable projects

Every published Lovable project gets a default subdomain at yourapp.lovable.app. Custom domains let you use your own domain (like app.yourbrand.com) instead. The setup involves two sides: telling Lovable about your domain, and telling your DNS provider to point that domain to Lovable's servers. The most common failure is DNS misconfiguration. Users add the wrong record type (A record instead of CNAME) or point to the wrong target. Lovable expects a CNAME record pointing to a specific value shown in the publish settings. If the CNAME is missing or wrong, SSL certificate provisioning fails and the domain shows an error. Cloudflare users hit a specific issue: Error 1000 'DNS points to prohibited IP'. This happens because Cloudflare's proxy (orange cloud icon) intercepts the connection before it reaches Lovable, and Lovable's SSL provisioning cannot complete through Cloudflare's proxy. The fix is setting the DNS record to 'DNS only' (grey cloud icon) so the connection goes directly to Lovable.

• Wrong DNS record type — CNAME is required but an A record was added instead
• CNAME target incorrect — pointing to the wrong hostname or missing the trailing dot
• Cloudflare proxy enabled — the orange cloud icon blocks Lovable's SSL provisioning
• DNS propagation not complete — records take up to 48 hours to propagate globally
• Domain not configured in Lovable's publish settings — DNS points to Lovable but Lovable does not recognize the domain

Error messages you might see

Before you start

• A Lovable project on a paid plan (Pro, Business, or Enterprise)
• A domain you own with access to its DNS management panel
• The project published at least once to lovable.app

How to fix it

Complete code example

1{
2  "rewrites": [
3    {
4      "source": "/(.*)",
5      "destination": "/index.html"
6    }
7  ],
8  "headers": [
9    {
10      "source": "/(.*)",
11      "headers": [
12        {
13          "key": "X-Content-Type-Options",
14          "value": "nosniff"
15        },
16        {
17          "key": "X-Frame-Options",
18          "value": "DENY"
19        },
20        {
21          "key": "Strict-Transport-Security",
22          "value": "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains"
23        }
24      ]
25    }
26  ]
27}

Best practices to prevent this

• Always use a subdomain (like app.yourbrand.com) instead of the root domain — CNAME records work reliably on subdomains across all DNS providers
• Disable Cloudflare proxy (set to DNS only) for Lovable custom domains to prevent Error 1000 and SSL provisioning failures
• Wait at least 30 minutes before troubleshooting DNS issues — most records propagate within this time
• Update your Supabase redirect URLs to include the new custom domain after setup — OAuth will break on the new domain otherwise
• Add both the custom domain and the lovable.app domain to your OAuth provider settings to keep both working
• Check for conflicting DNS records — remove any existing A or AAAA records for the same subdomain before adding the CNAME
• Bookmark your lovable.app URL as a backup — if the custom domain has issues, the default URL still works

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