--- title: "Delete a snapshot" method: DELETE path: "/snapshots/{id}" tags: ["Snapshots"] --- # Delete a snapshot `DELETE /snapshots/{id}` ## Request - Base URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1` - URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1/snapshots/{id}` - Auth: HTTP bearer Deleting a link in an incremental chain does not lose the snapshots that depend on it — the daemon keeps what they need. A snapshot held by two hosts at once — a move part way through handing its history over — is served from the copy on the host its computer now lives on. One that cannot be attributed that way, such as an orphan, answers 409 until the handover finishes; nothing is changed. THE DELETION OUTLIVES THIS CALL. You get a `202` and the snapshot’s row the moment the deletion is accepted, not when it finishes — detaching those dependents, then removing the stored objects, takes time that scales with the chain and with how much is stored, which is longer than any HTTP request survives. Poll `GET /snapshots?include=unfinished` for the id and WAIT FOR THE ROW TO GO. Its absence there is the deletion having finished; there is no state that means "deleted". A bare `GET /snapshots` drops the row as soon as it reads `deleting`, which can be long before the deletion has finished, so absence from a bare listing says only that the snapshot can no longer be restored or cloned. A ROW THAT STAYS SAYS WHICH OF TWO THINGS HAPPENED, by its state, and it is the opposite polarity to a failed capture, which leaves no row at all. Once the daemon has detached the dependents it records the deletion and marks the snapshot `deleting`, and that state is left out of a bare listing because a half-deleted snapshot is not one you can restore or clone. A `deleting` row finishes without you: one held up by a backup upload of this snapshot that is slow to stop reads `deleting` while it waits and finishes once the upload has stopped, and one that stalls after that is retried by the daemon itself. A row still in the state it had has not recorded the deletion. It may still be working: detaching its dependents, or waiting on a slow upload while backup storage also refuses the record, which it goes on trying to write. Or it failed before recording anything (a dependent that is itself being deleted, below, or backup storage refusing the record with no upload to wait on), and then nothing was destroyed and nothing retries it. A row that stays in its old state is therefore worth a second `DELETE`: it is refused with a `409` while another deletion of this snapshot holds it, and otherwise accepted as one more attempt, which does no harm if an earlier one is still waiting; a `202` does not say that the first one failed. EVERYTHING THAT CAN REFUSE A DELETION OF THIS SNAPSHOT IS REFUSED HERE, before the `202`: no such snapshot, a capture reading through it, a clone or a migration holding it, and a deletion of this snapshot already running. That last one is what a second `DELETE` gets for as long as the first is working, so it is an answer about progress rather than a fault. Each of those `409`s ends by itself and carries `reason: "contention"`. ONE CONFLICT ARRIVES AFTER THE `202`, and it is about a different snapshot: a dependent that is ITSELF being deleted cannot be detached, so deleting the link it hangs off fails once the work starts. Nothing is destroyed — the row stays exactly as it was, in its ordinary state rather than `deleting` — and the delete succeeds once the dependent’s own deletion has finished. Deleting a chain one link at a time, waiting for each row to go, never meets it. Requires the `member` role or higher. ## Path parameters - `id` string, required ## Response `202` The deletion, accepted — the row that goes when it has finished. It omits `orphaned`, which this answer does not work out; `GET /snapshots` carries it. - Snapshot - `id` string - `computer_id` string: The computer these bytes came from. May name a computer that no longer exists. - `computer_name` string: For a computer that still exists, its current name — so a rename is reflected without re-reading anything. For an orphan, the name at capture, which is all there is. Absent on snapshots taken before the daemon recorded it. - `orphaned` boolean: True when no host that answered lists the source computer, and every host that did not answer is one the platform’s records show holding none of this account’s computers. False when a host lists it. Omitted when that cannot be established, with `computer_unreachable: true`. Also omitted on the row `DELETE /snapshots/{id}` answers with, which does not work it out; read it from `GET /snapshots`. - `computer_unreachable` boolean: True when source computer presence cannot be established. Snapshot bytes may still be available; orphaned is omitted. - `restore_available` boolean: The snapshot has a usable copy on the current source computer host. False for old-host copies; clone remains available when the snapshot itself is reachable. - `name` string - `kind` 'disk' | 'memory': `disk` or `memory`. - `state` 'capturing' | 'pending' | 'durable' | 'deleting': Where these bytes have got to. `capturing` — the copy is still being taken, and this row is a placeholder rather than a snapshot: restore, clone and delete all 404 on it, though its id is already the id it will keep. `pending` — it is on the host and usable, and is being pushed to backup storage. `durable` — it is in backup storage too, which is the state your plan’s retention (`GET /retention`) ages out. `deleting` — a deletion began and has not finished, whether still under way or stalled; you only see these if you asked for them with `include=unfinished`. Poll this after a capture, and wait for it to stop reading `capturing` rather than for it to read `pending`. `pending` is where a finished capture lands, but replication can carry it on to `durable` between two polls; both are states you can act on. A row that disappears without ever leaving `capturing` is a capture that failed. A capture holds its computer until its upload to backup storage has finished, not just until it leaves `capturing`: a new capture of the SAME computer is refused (`409`, `reason: "contention"`) while that upload runs, which is ordinarily for as long as this row reads `pending`, and is accepted once it reads `durable`. Restore, clone and delete all work from `pending`. - `size_bytes` integer - `created_at` string: RFC 3339 timestamp. - `os` string - `template` string - `cpu` integer - `ram_mb` integer - `disk_gb` integer - `resolution` string: The screen the capture was taken at, and what a clone of it comes up as. - `auto` boolean: Taken by the scheduler rather than by hand. Only these are ever aged out by your plan’s retention, and `GET /retention` is the window they are aged out on. - `incremental` boolean: This snapshot is a link in a chain rather than a full copy, which is why it bills smaller. - `unreachable` boolean: As on Computer — a row from the placement cache, with nothing else on it. ## Other responses - `400`: The request was malformed — a bad resolution string, a missing `command`, a `{pid}` or `{window}` that is not one. It is also what a well-formed request gets when the thing it names cannot be acted on and never will be — a restore onto a computer that is gone, for instance. Either way it is final: the message says what is wrong, and sending it again unchanged answers the same. That is the whole difference from a `503`, which means ask again shortly. - `401`: Platform authentication required or refused: reason is missing, invalid, or revoked, with WWW-Authenticate: Bearer (invalid_token for invalid/revoked). - `403`: The credential is recognized but its holder lacks the required role or membership, or the holder/account is suspended, or the holder has not verified their email address. An ordinary denial for too low a role may carry no `reason`. The email one carries none either, and its message begins `Verify your email before`: it answers a create, a clone of a computer or a snapshot, a new API key and a new SSH key, and is cleared by verifying the address in the dashboard. `reason: "revoked"` marks authority that is gone: a suspended account or a lost membership (refused as the request arrives, or if it happens while the request is in flight), or a role that was lowered while the request was in flight. The message identifies the refusal; replacing a valid key alone does not restore authority, and sending the same call again does not help. - `404`: No such resource in your scope — a computer, snapshot, secret, webhook, SSH key, API key, workspace, operation and so on — or no such endpoint; a confirmed missing guest file is no such file in the guest. - `405`: This public path exists but does not accept that method. Allow lists only its public methods, with HEAD for GET and metadata OPTIONS. - `409`: Refused for the state something is in — resizing a computer that is running, running a command on one that is stopped, taking a snapshot while another capture of it is running. WHETHER RETRYING HELPS IS IN THE BODY, NOT THE STATUS, and this is the one thing to take from this entry. Some of these describe a state that is passing: a guest agent still inside its boot window, a guest agent busy with another call, a move already running on the account. Those clear on their own and the same request works a moment later. The rest describe a DECISION about the request you sent — the size does not fit, the computer is the wrong one for this, the saved session cannot travel — and no amount of retrying turns one of those into a yes. A client that treats 409 as uniformly transient loops forever on half of them. Where the platform can say which it is, it sends `reason` beside `error` — one word, meant to be switched on rather than read: `contention` and `starting` clear on their own, `unavailable` means the computer is not running and only starting it helps, `running` means the computer is running and only stopping it helps (a resize), `unsupported` means waiting will not change the answer — this computer cannot do it at all, or it needs another step first, which the message names (a stop, or removing its secret bindings, for example) — `exists` means a create-only upload found its path taken, `name_taken` means a secret of that name is already in that scope, `stale_revision` means a secret changed since the `revision_id` you sent was read (or a computer’s bound list since the `version` you sent), and `stale_capture` means the screenshot capture you named is no longer held: a newer one replaced it, or its host’s daemon restarted or the computer moved. `starting` covers the two minutes after a start or a restart, and after a reboot from inside the guest on a computer last cold-started recently enough to report one (a stop and a start gives an older one that); a guest agent that is still silent after that is a `502`. Match on that and never on the sentence, which is prose and is rewritten. **Absent means no classification was given** — treat it, and any word you do not recognise, as no answer, because not every refusal here has one yet. It is what the guest routes answer: the clipboard on a stopped computer used to be a 409 indistinguishable from a clipboard whose selection was claimed for an instant, and a blanket retry loop spun against the first until its deadline. Every 409 that clears on its own carries `contention` or `starting`: a host busy with another build or with no room for one, an operation already running on the same computer or snapshot (a capture, a copy, a delete, a restore or clone reading it, another agent run), a lock another request holds, a move or a delivery settling. So a 409 with no word, or with any other word, is not one that waiting fixes: read the sentence for the step it names. The ones worth knowing by name, because each has a next step that is not "wait": A resize past what the computer’s host can run carries `move`, an object rather than a message: `{"required":true,"possible":true}` means another host in this region could run it and the computer has to be moved there first — `POST /computers/{id}/move` with the same sizing fields is how you agree to that, and it is a separate call because relocating a computer is not something a resize should do to you quietly. `possible:false` means nowhere in the region can, and the size is the thing to change. The move itself then refuses for the things it re-decides at the moment it runs, and only one of those is worth waiting on: a computer that is running or suspended has to be stopped or resumed-and-stopped by you, a size that fits where it already is wants an ordinary resize instead, and a region with nowhere to put it wants a smaller size. `Another computer on this account is being moved right now` is the one that clears by itself, and it carries `reason: "contention"` — one move runs per account, and `GET /moves` says which. And the terminal socket refuses twice over: `reason: "unavailable"` with `resume_required: true` on a suspended computer, which clears when you start it and not before, and `reason: "unsupported"` on a running computer whose hardware carries no terminal channel — one last started before interactive terminals existed — which needs a stop and a start. Not a restart, which resets the same machine, and not a retry, which never comes good. - `429`: You are asking faster than your plan allows. `Retry-After` says how many seconds to wait, and every metered response — anything past authentication and the re-check that your credential’s authority still holds — carries `RateLimit-Remaining`, so you do not have to be refused to find out. A `401`, a `403` from that re-check, an `OPTIONS` answer and an unexpected `500` carry none. The budget is spent in proportion to what a call costs rather than per request. What a call costs, in budget units, by kind (each operation’s exact figure is its `x-rate-cost` in the OpenAPI document): 1 to read one thing; 5 for a listing that spans the fleet, and 5 for a call into a running guest such as a screenshot or an exec; 10 for a power change and 10 to move file bytes; 25 for `GET /usage`, `GET /credits`, creating a public URL, and creating, rotating or testing a webhook; 50 to capture a snapshot; 100 to create, clone or restore a computer, and 100 to start an agent run, whose actions are then charged as they happen. The account-wide budget, as what an idle caller may spend at once and what refills each minute: No plan 1200 at once and 1200 a minute; Solo 4800 at once and 4800 a minute; Studio 12000 at once and 12000 a minute; Swarm 21600 at once and 21600 a minute. A single API key gets half of either. A `401` for a missing or unusable credential costs nothing: it is refused before anything is metered. A few refusals at the door cost one unit: a `403` because the role is too low or the route refuses an API key confined to a workspace, a `404` for a path that matches nothing, a `405`, and an `Idempotency-Key` answered from its stored result or still in progress. Everything else is charged in full when it is admitted, before it is carried out, so a refusal after that has spent the whole cost: a `400`, `402` or `409` from the route, a `403` its handler sends (on most routes, a suspended account included), and a model provider’s `401` on an agent run. The budget belongs to the account and is shared across everything on it, and any single API key may spend at most half of it. `RateLimit-Limit` is whichever of those two is binding on the request that carried it — usually the per-key half, and the account-wide figure when other keys have already spent more of it than this one has. All three `RateLimit-*` headers describe the same one, so `limit` minus `remaining` is what has been spent against it. A few `429`s are not about this budget, say so in their message, and can carry no `Retry-After`: a model provider’s rate limit relayed on an agent run. The cap on forks of one snapshot waiting for their secrets sends its own bounded expiry-based `Retry-After` with `reason: "contention"` (see `POST /snapshots/{id}/clone`). - `500`: The application could not finish this: an unexpected exception, a build that broke, or a storage fault. Application refusals carry the request correlation ID; unexpected internal details are not returned. - `503`: Something this depends on — a hypervisor, a store, or a host’s capacity — could not answer or take this right now. A read can be retried shortly. A change answered `503` may or may not have happened — a failure after the request was sent is answered the same way, with or without a warning in the message — so read the current state before retrying anything that is not safe to repeat, such as a create or a command. On the collection reads, `allow_partial=1` accepts a knowingly short answer instead. --- [API](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/revisions/2afbb87fa703?raw)