Delete spans
Permanently deletes spans by their span IDs. This operation is irreversible.
Accepts between 1 and 5000 span IDs per request. Only spans within the searched time window are considered; spans outside that window are not affected.
The optional start_time and end_time fields scope the search to a
specific time window. Each bound is independent: omitting start_time
defaults to two years ago; omitting end_time defaults to now. You may
provide either or both. Providing them when the approximate timestamp of
the target spans is known significantly reduces the amount of span data
the server must search.
A 200 OK response always includes:
completed—trueif the operation finished and no retry is needed;falseif the operation could not fully complete (retry the full request).deleted_span_ids— span IDs confirmed deleted in this request.not_deleted_span_ids— requested IDs not deleted: either not found within the supported time range, or not reached whencompletedisfalse.
The delete operation is idempotent — re-submitting already-deleted IDs is safe.
Authorizations
Most Arize AI endpoints require authentication. For those endpoints that require authentication, include your API key in the request header using the format
Body
Body containing span IDs to delete
The project ID containing the spans to delete
List of span IDs to delete (maximum 5000)
1 - 5000 elementsScope the delete to spans starting at or after this timestamp (inclusive).
ISO 8601 format (e.g., 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z). Each bound is independent:
omitting start_time defaults to two years ago; omitting end_time
defaults to now. You may provide either or both.
Scope the delete to spans starting before this timestamp (exclusive).
ISO 8601 format (e.g., 2024-01-02T00:00:00Z). Each bound is independent:
omitting start_time defaults to two years ago; omitting end_time
defaults to now. You may provide either or both.
Response
Spans deleted. The response body always includes:
completed: whether all requested spans were fully processed. This endpoint is idempotent — retries are safe.deleted_span_ids: IDs of spans confirmed deleted.not_deleted_span_ids: IDs of spans not deleted — either not found, or not yet processed whencompletedisfalse.
Result of a DELETE /v2/spans request.
deleted_span_ids lists every span ID confirmed deleted. not_deleted_span_ids
lists every requested span ID that was not deleted.
completed indicates whether the server fully processed all data for the
request — not whether all spans were found and deleted. A span may appear
in not_deleted_span_ids even when completed is true if it was not found
in the system (never ingested or already deleted).
When completed is true, every requested ID appears in exactly one of
deleted_span_ids or not_deleted_span_ids. No retry is needed.
When completed is false, the server could not fully process all data.
Some IDs in not_deleted_span_ids may still be deletable — retry the
original full request to resolve them. The delete is idempotent.
true when the server fully processed all data for the request — both
lists are complete and no retry is needed. false when processing could
not fully complete; retry the original request. Note: completed reflects
whether all data was processed, not whether all requested spans existed.
Span IDs confirmed deleted in this request.
Requested span IDs that were not deleted. When completed is true,
these were not found in the system (never ingested or already deleted).
When completed is false, some IDs may not have been reached — retry
to resolve them.