Hard or Soft Delete in Phoenix UI: Clarifying Trace Data Deletion

Zhuyi X. · 2025-07-30T22:17:32.168Z

qq, pls. When I delete some trace data via phoenix UI (as attached), is it a hard delete or soft delete?

When you delete trace data via the Phoenix UI, it is a hard delete: the traces and all associated spans are permanently removed from the database, not just marked as deleted. This is confirmed by both the documentation and test code, which show that deleted traces and their spans are no longer present in the database after deletion actions in the UI or via the API. There is no mention of a soft delete mechanism for traces or spans in the provided sources—soft delete is only used for certain other entities like users and generative models, not for trace data itself.Would you like more detail on the deletion process or references to the relevant API/test code?Sources: - phoenix/server/api/utils.py - phoenix/tests/unit/server/api/routers/v1/test_traces.py

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