Soft deletes — Examples

Soft deletes

Instead of physically deleting a row, stamp a deleted_at and hide it from reads. A Soft mixin carries the column and a policy that filters deleted rows out of every SELECT:

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abstract type Soft {
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  deleted_at: datetime;
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  policy not_deleted for select using ( .deleted_at is null );
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}
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type Article extends Base, Soft {
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  required title: str;
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}

“Delete” is an update that sets the timestamp:

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update Article filter .id = $id<uuid> set { deleted_at := now() };

Reads through the app role only ever see live rows — the policy appends WHERE deleted_at IS NULL for you:

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multi select Article { id, title };

Counting explicitly (e.g. from a privileged role that bypasses RLS) still works with an is null filter:

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select count(Article filter .deleted_at is null);

From generated code

Save the three queries as soft_delete_article.aql, list_articles.aql, and count_live_articles.aql:

TypeScript
Go

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await runner.query.softDeleteArticle({ id });   // stamps deleted_at
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const live = await runner.query.listArticles(); // ListArticlesRow[] — deleted rows hidden by the policy
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const n = await runner.query.countLiveArticles(); // number

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_, err := runner.Query.SoftDeleteArticle(ctx, gen.SoftDeleteArticleParams{ID: id})
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live, err := runner.Query.ListArticles(ctx) // []ListArticlesRow
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n, err := runner.Query.CountLiveArticles(ctx) // int64