Single-atom heterogeneous catalysts with welldefined architectures are promising for deriving structureperformance relationships,b ut the challenge lies in finely tuning the structural and electronic properties of the metal. To tackle this point, anew approachbased on the surface diffusion of gold atoms on different cavities of N-doped carbon is presented. By controlling the activation temperature,t he coordination neighbors (Cl, O, N) and the oxidation state of the metal can be tailored. Semi-hydrogenation of various alkynes on the single-atom gold catalysts displays substratedependent catalytic responses;s tructure insensitive for alkynols with g-OH and unfunctionalized alkynes,and sensitive for alkynols with a-OH. Density functional theory links the sensitivity for alkynols to the strong interaction between the substrate and specific gold-cavity ensembles,m imicking am olecular recognition pattern that allows to identify the cavity site and to enhance the catalytic activity.