---
title: "Delete a draft envelope"
method: DELETE
path: "/envelopes/{envelopeId}"
tags: ["Envelopes"]
---

# Delete a draft envelope

`DELETE /envelopes/{envelopeId}`

## Request

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

Deletes a draft envelope and schedules deletion of envelope-owned rendered objects. The shared source document and its template-owned objects are never deleted. Non-draft envelopes are rejected. Honors `Idempotency-Key`.

## Headers

- `Idempotency-Key` string

## Response `200`

Draft deleted. Envelope-owned object cleanup continues durably.

- object
  - `data` object, required
    - `id` string, required
    - `deleted` true, required

## Other responses

- `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).
- `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)