Delete a work item

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

Delete a work item. The delete is a soft delete — the row is retained internally — but it is gone from every API surface, and there is no endpoint to bring it back.

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.

If you want the work item out of the way but 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 (uuid)

The work item's UUID. This lookup is UUID-only — a PROJ-142 identifier here returns 404.

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.

Scopes

projects.work_items:write

Errors

Status	Code	Cause
400	validation_error	The request could not be processed — for example a pk that isn't a valid UUID.
401	unauthorized	Missing or invalid credentials.
403	forbidden	Your role or token scope can't delete this work item.
404	resource_not_found	No such work item, or it's outside your project or tenant.
409	conflict	The delete collides with a protected-resource constraint.
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": "https://api.plane.so/errors/forbidden",
  "title": "Forbidden",
  "status": 403,
  "code": "forbidden",
  "detail": "You do not have permission to delete this work item."
}

Who can delete

Deleting is gated per work item, not just per project. Depending on how the project's roles are configured, the right to delete may be limited to administrators plus the work item's own creator — so a token that can edit a work item may 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