Delete a reporter’s notes

The widget asks for no e-mail address since 0.1.0, so a note carries one in two cases only: the integrator’s identity token gave it, or the note was written before. A typed name is a claim, and so was a typed e-mail: a reporter can write somebody else’s, and two reporters can write the same one. So list the notes first, read the list, and delete after.

A note signed with a name only has no address to search for, and a note with no name has nothing to search for at all. Each note has an identifier, and the thread of its pin shows it on the page.

• PostgreSQL: the worker has a command for it. Run it in the container, like pair:

  docker compose exec worker node server.mjs forget --email alice@example.com --dry-run
  docker compose exec worker node server.mjs forget --email alice@example.com
  

  The first line lists the notes that give this address, with their FB-n, date, page and the start of the note, and deletes nothing. The second deletes them, with the team’s replies to them. The address is compared without case and without the spaces around it. You do not have to stop the worker: the database takes the deletion in one transaction. A page can still show a deleted note for up to 15 seconds, from the cache. Then delete it from your backups too, or record when they expire. On PostgreSQL the command reads the notes of every site of the worker, whatever their workspace: it is for whoever runs the worker, not for a workspace.

  For a note with no address, list by name, then delete by identifier:

  docker compose exec worker node server.mjs forget --name "Alice" --dry-run
  docker compose exec worker node server.mjs forget --id FB-12 --id FB-15
  

  --name only lists, and the command refuses it without --dry-run: two reporters sign with the same name, so a name finds notes and does not decide which ones go. --id deletes the notes you name, with their replies. If one identifier of the list names no note, nothing is deleted. Use one of --email, --name and --id in a command. Measured with the compose file on 2026-10-16: forget --id FB-1 --dry-run listed the note of the path of self-hosting.md, and deleted nothing.

• After an upgrade copied the notes of an instance of before 0.3.0 into the database, the file of before still holds them. See self-hosting/upgrade.md. migrate-to-postgres --notes copies and never writes the file, which is the way back. forget then deletes in the database only: a note that a person asked you to delete is still in the file and in the archives that hold it. Delete the file when the way back is no longer needed, and record when its archives expire.
• Linear and GitHub: the notes are issues in your own workspace, so you delete them there, and the command says so rather than deleting anything. Search the issues for the address, because the description states it, read them, and delete the ones that are this reporter’s. On GitHub only an administrator of the repository can delete an issue. Closing an issue does not delete it.

If you delete PostgreSQL rows by hand, delete the row of notes: its replies in note_comments go with it.