Soft delete

How it works

A delete marker in object storage is the usual form. A GET fails. A privileged restore works until the purge. Transfer links die. The bill may continue.

A producer soft-deletes a 6 GB cut sent to the wrong client. The link 404s. They restore an hour later for the right client. A hard delete would have required a re-upload.

How it differs

Soft delete is not object lock. You can still purge. Lock refuses even that.

A lifecycle that does not purge markers leaves cost and risk.

Schedule the purge.

On the ticket

• The practical close is a log line: time, actor, byte count, result.
• Without that line the transfer is a story.
• With it, the next person can see whether this door did what the ticket claimed.
• If the path is shared, say so in the partner profile so a later change does not silently pick a different limit, key, or region.
• On a real ticket, write down the door, the byte count, and the clock.
• For soft delete, that means naming the host or bucket, the expected size, and the time the other side must have a complete file.
• A progress bar is not that record.
• A 200 response that arrives before the complete call is not that record.
• If a retry is allowed, say how many and whether it resumes.
• If a person must approve the send, name the person.
• Partners who receive soft delete files should match on hash or size before they import.
• A same-length corrupt file passes a size check and fails a hash.
• Keep the published hash off the only channel an attacker can edit, or treat it as a corruption check rather than a substitution check.
• When the path changes, new key, new region, new cap, update the profile the same day so the next run does not use a stale limit.