Command: Delete

Deletes a persistent key/value. The key is ignored if it doesn't exist.

set `services/email/instance-3` '{"ip": "10.1.1.22", "port": 9090}'
r0 set 9ms

delete `services/email/instance-3`
r1 deleted 12ms

Notes

Keep in mind that deleting a key does not immediately remove it from disk. Instead, it is marked with a tombstone, which prevents it from being visible in future reads.

The tombstone is its own revision. If the live value is at r0, the delete returns r1, and a later set returns r2. This preserves the pre-delete value for historical AS OF reads and point-in-time recovery.

Depending on the compaction policies of the underlying key/value store, these deleted keys (tombstones) may be fully removed later to reclaim disk space.