Soft delete (soft-delete)

Opt-in soft delete per resource: DELETE marks a record as deleted instead of removing it, every query hides deleted records, and admins can list and restore them.

Shell

npx calm add soft-delete

Adds
Files	`app/blocks/soft-delete/index.js`
Routes, per enabled resource	`GET /api/<names>/trash`, `POST /api/<names>/:recordId/restore` (admin)

Enable it on a resource#

JavaScript

export default resource('note', {
  softDelete: true,
  fields: {
    text: f.string().required(),
    author: f.ref('user').owner(),
  },
  policy: { list: 'owner | admin', read: 'owner | admin', create: 'authenticated', update: 'owner | admin', delete: 'owner | admin' },
});

The block adds a hidden deletedAt date field to the resource and replaces its service's remove():

DELETE /api/notes/:id sets deletedAt and answers 204, with the same policy checks and hooks (beforeDelete, afterDelete) as before.
Every query (find, findOne, countDocuments, updates and aggregations) ignores records with a deletedAt, so they disappear from lists, reads, updates and includes.
The usual note.deleted event is emitted, with soft: true in the payload.

Trash and restore#

Route	Does
`GET /api/notes/trash`	Deleted notes, most recently deleted first (up to 100)
`POST /api/notes/:recordId/restore`	Clears `deletedAt` and returns the note. Emits `note.restored`.

From code, ctx.services.note.restore(id, ctx) does the same.

Reading deleted records yourself#

Queries skip deleted records unless their filter mentions deletedAt or they pass the withDeleted option:

JavaScript

const deleted = await this.model.find({ deletedAt: { $ne: null } }).lean();
const everything = await this.model.find({}).setOptions({ withDeleted: true }).lean();

Deleted records stay in the collection, including their unique values: a new record cannot reuse the email or slug of a soft-deleted one. Purge old ones with a scheduled job if you need to.