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After deploying your Hydrogen storefront, you’ll need to connect a custom domain so customers can access your store at your own URL (e.g., yourdomain.com). This guide walks through adding the domain in Shopify, pointing it to your Hydrogen app, and configuring DNS records.
This guide uses Cloudflare as the DNS provider for examples, but the same DNS records apply to any provider (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Route 53, etc.). The key difference is where you create the records and how you disable proxying.

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Prerequisites

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Step 1 — Add Domain in Shopify Admin

1

Open domain settings

Go to Shopify Admin → Settings → Domains.
2

Connect your domain

Click Connect existing domain and enter your domain (e.g., yourdomain.com).
Shopify Admin - Connect existing domain

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Step 2 — Point Domain to Hydrogen

Once the domain appears in your domain list:
1

Select your domain

Click on your domain name in the domains list.
2

Change the target

Change the target from Online Store to your Hydrogen storefront.
This step is critical. If the domain still points to the Online Store, visitors will see the Liquid theme instead of your Hydrogen app.

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Step 3 — Configure DNS Records

Log in to your DNS provider’s dashboard and create the following records:

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Root Domain

FieldValue
TypeCNAME
Name@
Targetshops.myshopify.com
ProxyOFF (DNS only)

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WWW Subdomain

FieldValue
TypeCNAME
Namewww
Targetshops.myshopify.com
ProxyOFF (DNS only)
Cloudflare users: Make sure the orange cloud icon is turned OFF (grey cloud / DNS only). Shopify needs direct access to your domain to provision the SSL certificate. If the proxy is enabled, SSL provisioning will fail.
Some DNS providers don’t support CNAME records on the root domain (@). In that case, look for an ALIAS or ANAME record type, which serves the same purpose. Check your provider’s documentation for details.

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Step 4 — Verify the Connection

After updating your DNS records:
1

Wait for propagation

DNS changes typically take 5–30 minutes to propagate, though in some cases it can take up to 48 hours.
2

Verify in Shopify

Go back to Shopify Admin → Settings → Domains and check that your domain shows as Connected.
3

SSL certificate

Shopify will automatically provision an SSL certificate for your domain. This may take a few additional minutes after DNS verification completes.

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Troubleshooting

  • Double-check that both CNAME records (@ and www) point to shops.myshopify.com
  • Ensure DNS proxy is disabled (Cloudflare users: grey cloud, not orange)
  • Wait up to 48 hours for full DNS propagation
  • Try removing and re-adding the domain in Shopify
  • Verify that Cloudflare proxy is OFF (DNS only / grey cloud). This is the most common cause
  • Ensure no conflicting A records exist for the same domain
  • Check that your domain registrar hasn’t locked DNS changes
  • Wait up to 24 hours — Shopify retries SSL provisioning periodically
  • Go to Shopify Admin → Settings → Domains → click your domain
  • Confirm the target is set to your Hydrogen storefront, not Online Store
  • This usually happens when Cloudflare’s SSL mode is set to Flexible
  • Change Cloudflare SSL/TLS mode to Full or Full (Strict)
  • Alternatively, disable Cloudflare proxy entirely (recommended for Shopify domains)

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Next Steps