If you delete an asset at source, Atlan will archive that asset in the next crawler run. Atlan recommends that you manage additions or deletions through source workflows. Considering that Atlan workflows run differential crawls, any changes to your assets will be reflected in subsequent crawler runs. This helps deliver faster runtimes and improves workflow performance.
If you delete an asset using APIs, there can be two scenarios:
- Archived:
- Assets are soft-deleted, moving to an Archived state.
- The next workflow run will restore the asset only if any changes are made to any of its source metadata properties — for example, a new column was added.
- You can also restore archived assets.
- Hard-deleted:
- The asset is completely removed from the metastore.
- The next workflow run will create a net-new asset only if any changes are made to any of its source metadata properties — for example, a new column was added.
- You cannot restore hard-deleted assets.
Atlan recommends the deletion of assets to be managed by source workflows. The delete and restore endpoints are generally meant for assets created via APIs.