Use GitHub assigned domain instead of custom domain?

[zt64]

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Hi
I have a custom domain which I am using for my personal website. I have another separate repository that I want to host some content from, but I want it to use the default assigned domain when no custom domain is specified. I don't see any way to force it to not use the custom one. Is this not possible to do at the moment? If not I would really like to see some way to do this kind of thing

[leonardorifeli]

Hello @zt64

If you have a custom domain set up for your main GitHub Pages site, any additional repositories you publish using GitHub Pages by default will also attempt to use that custom domain. Unfortunately, GitHub does not provide a direct toggle to disable this behavior for specific repositories. However, you can force a repository to use the default GitHub Pages URL instead.

Solution: Remove the Custom Domain from the Secondary Repository

To make your second repository use the default github.io/repo-name/ format instead of your custom domain:

1. Go to the repository settings of the second repo.
2. Navigate to Pages under the Code and automation section.
3. In the Custom domain field, check if your custom domain (yourdomain.com) is prefilled.
4. Remove the custom domain from this repository and save the changes.
5. Wait for GitHub Pages to process the update.

After doing this, the second repository should default to the GitHub-assigned subdomain:
➡ https://yourusername.github.io/repository-name/

Alternative: Use a Subdomain for the Custom Domain

If your goal is to use your custom domain only for your main repository but keep a subdomain (or no domain) for others, you can:

1. Keep yourdomain.com assigned only to the primary repository.
2. Set up a subdomain for your second repository (sub.yourdomain.com) by adding a CNAME record in your DNS provider:

   sub.yourdomain.com  →  yourusername.github.io
   

3. In the second repository’s Pages settings, set sub.yourdomain.com as the custom domain.

Why This Happens

GitHub Pages automatically applies a user/organization-level domain to all repositories unless manually removed from individual repositories. Right now, there isn’t an explicit setting to allow mixed domain usage across different repositories.

[benhg]

In my case, the custom domain is not listed, so there's no way for me to remove the custom domain. But when I run GitHub pages publishing workflows, they try to publish to the custom domain anyways.