Two different components
The core recognises an installed verified pknic-assisted registrar and wraps it with public WHOIS reads. The separately documented source package pknic-assisted-sample is a manual workflow example; its slug is different and it does not automatically acquire that installed adapter behavior. Do not install the sample expecting a fully automated registrar.
Public lookup
The installed adapter uses PKNIC's publicly linked HTTPS lookup to read availability, expiry and nameservers. No registrar credentials are needed for those public reads. A not-found result is still subject to registry naming/reservation rules and manual purchase confirmation. Public WHOIS cannot prove the domain belongs to your PKNIC account.
The reader uses a fixed verified-TLS host, no redirects, bounded request/response sizes and timeouts, a short cache and application rate limit. Invalid, changed, challenged or mismatched HTML fails closed. A complete explicitly empty nameserver section can clear saved values; an incomplete response retains confirmed data.
Manual writes
Registration, renewal, transfer/account reconciliation and nameserver changes remain manual. Follow the installed package's PKNIC account/portal instructions, verify credit/funding and registrant details, perform the actual action privately in the provider portal and record the confirmed result through the supported staff workflow. Public availability never enables automatic checkout, paid registry renewal or activation.
Scheduled refresh
Eligible linked records use the ordinary registrar sync cycle. Successful reads can refresh expiry/nameservers without changing invoices, billing dates, pending service activation or registrar account ownership. Failures preserve last confirmed values. Do not treat a fresh public expiry as proof your own renewal request was paid or accepted.
Sample reference
The sample package manual documents account email, portal URL, default nameservers and manual register/renew/nameserver work instructions. Its passing Test validates local configuration only and makes no remote API purchase or account-authentication claim.