deleting-thoughts

name	deleting-thoughts
description	Use when asked to delete, remove, purge, wipe, or "get rid of" an Open Brain thought, or before calling delete_thought (the open-brain-delete-thought connector), which HARD-deletes with no undo. Also use when tempted to delete a thought that is merely outdated or wrong. To edit or deprecate instead of removing, see updating-thoughts.
author	Ezana Azene
version	1.0.0

Deleting Thoughts

Overview

delete_thought (the open-brain-delete-thought connector) performs a hard delete — the row is gone the moment it returns, with no tombstone, no soft-delete, and no restore. Recovery depends entirely on database backups. The Open Brain maintainer's stance is "deprecate and version rather than delete." So deletion is a last resort, and every delete must target an id you verified this session.

Violating the letter of these rules is violating their spirit.

When to Use

Delete only when both hold:

• The thought is genuinely disposable — a test/throwaway, an exact duplicate, or an accidental capture, and
• Editing or tagging it is not good enough.

If the thought is merely outdated, wrong, or superseded, update it or tag it superseded instead — see the updating-thoughts skill.

Process

1. Resolve the id via search_thoughts / list_thoughts. delete_thought takes a UUID; never delete an id you typed from memory.
2. Show the target and confirm. Surface the thought's content to the user and get explicit confirmation that this specific thought should be removed.
   • Check for derivatives first. Before deleting, run find_derivatives (and/or related_thoughts) on the thought. If other thoughts were derived from it, deleting orphans their provenance chain — those derivatives lose the source they point back to. Prefer deprecating over deleting in that case. Tool names may carry a connector prefix; use whatever the environment exposes.
3. Delete only after confirmation. Call delete_thought(id). It pre-checks existence (a clean "not found" if already gone) and returns the prior content length as a receipt. Report that receipt to the user.

This Is Irreversible — No Exceptions

• No undo, no trash, no restore. Backups only.
• Don't batch-delete "to clean up" without confirming each id.
• Don't delete when the user said "update", "fix", "archive", or "deprecate" — those are updates, not deletes.
• Don't guess a UUID; a wrong guess deletes the wrong memory permanently.

Red Flags — STOP

• About to call delete_thought on an id you did not get from a search this session.
• Deleting more than one thought from a single vague instruction.
• The user's word was "clean up / tidy / archive / outdated" — not an explicit "delete".
• You have not shown the actual content to the user and gotten confirmation.

All of these mean: pause, search, show the thought, and confirm first.

Rationalizations — and Reality

Excuse	Reality
"It's obviously junk."	Show it and confirm anyway — "obvious" is exactly where wrong deletes happen.
"Faster to delete than to tag."	Speed never justifies an irreversible loss. Tag or deprecate instead.
"The user probably meant this one."	Probably ≠ confirmed. Resolve the id and show it.
"I'll just re-capture if it was wrong."	Re-capture loses the original metadata, embedding history, and provenance links.

Output

A receipt naming the deleted id and its prior content length. Always report it so there is a record of what was removed.

Notes

• Connector: open-brain-delete-thought, auth via ?key= or the x-brain-key header — the same MCP_ACCESS_KEY as your core Open Brain connector.
• For recoverable deletes, install the schemas/thought-audit table and write an audit row before deleting (see the integrations/delete-thought-mcp README's extension hook).