---
title: "Delete a draft document"
method: DELETE
path: "/documents/{documentId}"
tags: ["Documents"]
---

# Delete a draft document

`DELETE /documents/{documentId}`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://inkseal.net/api/v1`
- URL: `https://inkseal.net/api/v1/documents/{documentId}`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

Deletes a document that has never been sent and queues its stored objects for cleanup.

Drafts only. Once an envelope built from the document has been sent, the document is signing evidence, and a completed one is held for its retention window; both answer 409 with `reason` set to `already_sent` or `completed` rather than deleting anything.

Accepts an `Idempotency-Key`: a retry with the same key replays the original response. Without one, a retry after the delete has committed finds nothing left and answers 404, never a 500.

## Headers

- `Idempotency-Key` string

## Response `200`

The document and its stored objects were deleted.

- object
  - `data` DocumentDeletion, required
    - `id` string, required: A document's public id: a 21-character URL-safe nanoid. Internal row ids and storage keys are never exposed.
    - `deleted` true, required

## Other responses

- `400`: The request is malformed or the resource is in the wrong state for a synchronous check. Codes: `validation_error`, `invalid_body`, `invalid_parameter`, `invalid_idempotency_key`, `invalid_event_id`, `invalid_file`, `invalid_url`, `invalid_status`, `key_mismatch`, `no_signers`, `not_completed`, `envelope_exists`, `document_not_ready`, `upload_failed`.
- `401`: The credential is missing, malformed, unknown, expired, revoked, or past its rotation grace window. Code: `unauthorized`. Every authentication failure is deliberately indistinguishable.
- `403`: The credential is valid but may not do this. Codes: `insufficient_scope` (the route's scopes are not all held; `details` names `requiredScopes` and `missingScopes`), `forbidden` (the capability check on the resolved resource failed), `scope_escalation` (a grant wider than the caller's own was requested).
- `404`: The resource does not exist, was deleted, or belongs to another workspace. Code: `not_found`. The three cases are answered identically on purpose, so a 404 never confirms that an identifier exists elsewhere.
- `409`: The resource's state forbids this transition, or another request owns the work. Codes: `invalid_state`, `invalid_status`, `credential_state`, `limit_exceeded`, `envelope_missing`, `not_retryable`, `owner_unavailable`, `workspace_unavailable`, `detection_not_completed`, `document_in_use`, `version_conflict`, `document_processing`, `document_processing_failed`, `normalized_pdf_unavailable`, `pages_not_rendered`, `document_not_ready`, `idempotency_in_progress` (which also carries `Retry-After`), `payment_replayed` (a USDC payment signature presented twice), `payment_pending` (a USDC settlement whose outcome is not yet known).
- `422`: The request parsed but its content is not acceptable. Codes: `validation_error` (envelope configuration, with an `issues` array in `details`), `invalid_envelope`, `envelope_not_ready`, `document_page_limit`, `idempotency_key_reuse`.
- `429`: A limit was reached. Codes: `rate_limited` (the credential's per-bucket HTTP limit, or the per-workspace detection throttle), `workspace_limit_exceeded` (a workspace content or send limit; `details.limit` names it), `daily_budget_exceeded` (the workspace's daily detection budget). The four rate-limit headers are sent on this response and on no successful one, so a client cannot read its remaining budget without being refused. Retrying after `Retry-After` is always safe: a rate-limit refusal happens before the handler runs.
- `503`: A dependency the request needs is unreachable and nothing was changed. Codes: `queue_unavailable` (a background job could not be enqueued; retry the call), `billing_unavailable` (Stripe would not open a checkout session; nothing was charged, retry the call), `service_unavailable` (the rate-limit store is down, so the request was refused before running).

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/inkseal/apis/inkseal-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/inkseal/apis/inkseal-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/inkseal/apis/inkseal-api/revisions/c440c981d578?raw)