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Asset Retention and Cleanup

Summary​

Source-backed account of what the Asset Service deletes, retains, or leaves untouched across every persisted object. There is no cleanup worker and no soft-delete; the only deletion paths are a guarded hard delete of an asset and removal of a document reference row.

Audience​

Backend engineers, database reviewers, architects, QA, support, operations, security reviewers, and product owners.

Overview​

The Asset Service keeps data indefinitely except in two explicit paths. An asset may be hard-deleted, but only while it sits in a deletable status; deleting it cascades to its child rows. A document reference may be removed, but that removes only the pointer row — the external blob is retained. Everything else (audit, timeline, outbox, processed-event, and the compatibility identity carried on the asset) has no cleanup, no soft-delete, and no time-to-live in source. Retired is a terminal lifecycle state, not a deletion.

Confirmed persistence behavior​

ObjectBehavior in sourceClassification
Asset recordHard delete, permitted only when status is Available, Requested, or Rejected (deletable gate); no soft-delete flagHard delete (guarded)
Assignment historyNo independent cleanup; removed only by cascade when the parent asset is hard-deletedCascade removal only
Document referenceReference row removed on delete; the external blob is retained with no delete call to the Document ServiceReference removal; external retention
Audit logAppend-only; no cleanup worker, no soft-delete, no TTLNo cleanup found
TimelineAppend-only; no cleanup worker, no soft-delete, no TTLNo cleanup found
Outbox messagesNo cleanup, replay-purge, or dead-letter table in sourceNo cleanup found
Processed-event ledgerModeled idempotency ledger; no cleanup path in sourceNo cleanup found
Compatibility identityCarried as a property on the asset; removed only if the asset is hard-deletedNo independent cleanup
  • Hard delete only. Asset deletion is a physical delete guarded by the deletable status gate; there is no soft-delete column anywhere in the schema.
  • Terminal state is not deletion. Retired is a terminal lifecycle status. A retired asset remains stored and cannot be edited; it is never removed by reaching that state.
  • External document retention. Removing a document reference deletes only the local pointer row; the bytes in the Document Service are left in place, with no reconciliation, versioning, or retention handling of the external object.

Classification​

Implemented guarded hard delete and reference removal; no soft delete, no cleanup worker, and no retention automation across any object.

Requires confirmation​

  • Retention periods and purge governance for audit, timeline, outbox, and processed-event data.
  • Whether orphaned external document blobs should ever be reconciled or removed.
  • Any regulatory retention or right-to-erasure obligations — none are implemented in source.

Diagram​

See Also​

Keywords​

  • Asset retention
  • Data cleanup
  • Draft database documentation

Source References​

  • microservices/src/asset-service/Domain/Asset/Asset.cs
  • microservices/src/asset-service/Application/Commands/AssetCommands.cs
  • microservices/src/asset-service/Application/Commands/DocumentCommands.cs
  • microservices/src/asset-service/Infrastructure/AssetDbContext.cs

Revision Information​

  • Status: Draft
  • Last reviewed: 2026-07-17
  • Review cycle: Quarterly