Delete a work item

DELETE/api/v2/workspaces/{slug}/projects/{project_id}/work-items/{pk}/

Delete a work item. This is a soft delete: Plane keeps the row internally, but no API endpoint returns the work item afterwards, and none restores it.

A successful delete returns 204 with an empty body. Deleting a work item that is already gone returns 404, so the call is not idempotent from the client's point of view.

To hide a work item but keep it recoverable, use Archive a work item instead.

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 work item belongs to.

pk:requiredstring

The work item's UUID or its identifier, such as PROJ-142.

Deleting is not reversible through the API

There is no undelete endpoint. Confirm with the user before wiring this into an automation, and prefer archiving for anything you might want back.

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: archived_at, assignee_ids, completed_at, created_at, created_by_id, custom_fields, cycle_id, description_html, estimate_point_id, external_id, external_source, id, identifier, is_draft, label_ids, module_ids, name, parent_id, priority, project_id, sequence_id, sort_order, start_date, state_id, target_date, type_id, updated_at, updated_by_id.

See Sparse fields.

expand:optionalstring

Comma-separated relations to embed alongside the ids: assignees (the assigned users), cycle (the cycle it belongs to), estimate_point (its estimate point), labels (the applied labels), modules (the modules it belongs to), parent (its parent work item), state (the work item's state object), type (its work item type).

Expanded objects get their own key: ?expand=state keeps state_id and adds a state object next to it, so an id is never replaced by an object. An unknown value returns 400.

?fields= and ?expand= take separate sets of names. Relation names aren't valid in ?fields=, field names aren't valid in ?expand=, and field filtering never removes an expanded object: ?fields=id,name&expand=state returns id, name and state. See Expanding relations.

Scopes

projects.work_items:write

Errors

Status	Code	Cause
400	invalid_request	The request could not be processed, for example because pk isn't a valid UUID.
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 this work item.
404	not_found	No such work item, or it's outside your project or tenant.
406	not_acceptable	The Accept header asks for a representation the API can't produce.
409	conflict	The delete collides with a protected-resource constraint.
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 work item

curl -X DELETE \
  "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/work-items/8f4c2b1e-0d3a-4f7b-9c21-6e5a8b7d4f13/" \
  -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"
    "/work-items/8f4c2b1e-0d3a-4f7b-9c21-6e5a8b7d4f13/",
    headers={"X-Api-Key": "your-api-key"},
)
print(response.status_code)  # 204

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b" +
    "/work-items/8f4c2b1e-0d3a-4f7b-9c21-6e5a8b7d4f13/",
  {
    method: "DELETE",
    headers: { "X-Api-Key": "your-api-key" },
  },
);
console.log(response.status); // 204

Response204

No content.

Response403

{
  "type": "forbidden",
  "code": "forbidden",
  "detail": "You do not have permission to delete this work item."
}

Who can delete

Delete permission is checked per work item as well as per project. Depending on how the project's roles are configured, the right to delete may be limited to administrators and the work item's creator. A token that can edit a work item can still get a 403 when it tries to delete one it didn't create. The response is 403 forbidden and nothing is written.

Delete or archive?

	Delete	Archive
Endpoint	This page	Archive
Response	204, empty body	200 with the work item
Reversible	No	Yes, via unarchive
Effect on reads	Gone everywhere	Excluded from the default list and detail reads
Use it for	Mistakes, spam, test data	Finished or abandoned work you want to keep