Delete a state

DELETE/api/v2/workspaces/{slug}/projects/{project_id}/states/{pk}/

Remove a state from a project's workflow. A successful delete returns 204 with an empty body.

Two conditions block a delete, and you have to clear the one that applies before the delete succeeds. See Before you delete.

Path parameters

slug:requiredstring

The workspace slug. It appears in your Plane URLs. In https://app.plane.so/my-team/projects/, the slug is my-team.

project_id:requiredstring (uuid)

The project the state belongs to.

pk:requiredstring (uuid)

The id of the state to delete.

Response shaping

fields:optionalstring

Comma-separated list of fields to return. Fields you don't request are left out of the response instead of coming back as null, so a missing key means you didn't ask for it and null means the value is null. id is always included, whether or not you name it.

Pass all to get every requestable field. An unknown field name returns 400 with the list of valid names and the closest match, so a typo is caught instead of being silently ignored.

Requestable here: color, created_at, created_by_id, description, external_id, external_source, group, id, is_default, is_triage, name, sequence, updated_at, updated_by_id.

See Sparse fields.

Scopes

projects.states:write

Errors

Status	Code	Cause
400	invalid_request	The request body or a query parameter failed validation.
401	unauthorized	Missing or invalid credentials.
402	payment_required	The feature this endpoint belongs to isn't enabled on your plan, or is switched off.
403	forbidden	Your role or token scope can't delete states.
404	not_found	No such state, project, or workspace, or it's outside your tenant.
406	not_acceptable	The Accept header asks for a representation the API can't produce.
409	conflict	The state is the project's default state.
409	conflict	The state still holds work items.
409	states_managed_at_workspace	The workspace has governance turned on, so project states are read-only. See Workspace governance.
413	payload_too_large	The request body is over the size limit.
415	unsupported_media_type	The Content-Type isn't one this endpoint accepts.
429	rate_limited	Throttled. Honor the Retry-After header before retrying.

Delete a state

curl -X DELETE \
  "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/states/f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f/" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: $PLANE_API_KEY"

import requests

response = requests.delete(
    "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/states/f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f/",
    headers={"X-Api-Key": "your-api-key"},
)
print(response.status_code)

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/states/f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f/",
  {
    method: "DELETE",
    headers: {
      "X-Api-Key": "your-api-key",
    },
  },
);
console.log(response.status);

Response204

No response body.

Response409

{
  "type": "conflict",
  "code": "conflict",
  "detail": "The default state cannot be deleted."
}

Response409

{
  "type": "conflict",
  "code": "conflict",
  "detail": "Only an empty state (no work items) can be deleted."
}

Before you delete

Both protected cases return 409 conflict. Use the detail only for messaging, because the fix differs:

• If the state is the project's default: every project needs somewhere for work items to land when no state_id is supplied. Promote another state with Update a state and "is_default": true, which demotes the current default, then delete it.
• If the state still holds work items: deleting it would leave those work items without a status. Move them to another state first. Filter the project's work items by this state, PATCH each one to the replacement state, then retry the delete.

So the safe order is: reassign the work items, move the default flag if this state has it, then delete the state.

Deletes are soft

The state stops appearing in the API and in Plane, but the row is retained. Treat the 204 as final for integration purposes, because the states API has no restore operation.