---
title: Cleanup
description: Why removing records is its own plan, what a receipt proves, and what happens to a record someone edited by hand.
sidebar:
  label: Cleanup
seo:
  title: DomainKit receipt-bound cleanup
---

Cleanup removes only what a receipt proves DomainKit created, and it runs through the same three
verbs as provisioning: plan, approve, apply. The difference is where the plan comes from.

<Snippet file="examples/core/cleanup.ts" region="plan" title="Planning from a receipt" />

Each `Applied` outcome in the receipt names a provider record id. Cleanup reads that record back and
turns it into a `Delete` when it still matches the record the plan wrote exactly. Anything else
becomes a `Conflict`.

<Snippet file="examples/core/cleanup.ts" region="review" title="What the customer sees" />

| Conflict reason  | Means                                                      |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| `missing`        | The record is already gone                                 |
| `value-mismatch` | It no longer matches what the receipt says DomainKit wrote |

A record the provider now reports as something DomainKit cannot model is a `value-mismatch` too:
whatever is there, it is not what was written.

A conflict is never deleted. A record the customer edited belongs to the customer.

## Its own approval and receipt

<Snippet file="examples/core/cleanup.ts" region="apply" title="Approve and apply" />

The cleanup approval binds the cleanup plan's digest, and the cleanup receipt records what was
removed. Declining works the same way and is equally terminal.

<Snippet file="examples/core/cleanup.ts" region="reject" title="Declining a removal" />

## Cleanup and detach

Detaching a domain forgets it in DomainKit and leaves every record in DNS. That is the right order
for a customer moving a domain elsewhere and the wrong one for a customer who wants their zone tidy.

Plan and apply cleanup first, then detach.

## Why not automatic rollback

A failed apply does not undo its earlier writes. A rollback can fail halfway itself, and by the time
it runs another actor may depend on the record. A partial receipt says exactly what landed, and
cleanup is a separate decision the customer makes with the same review they gave the plan.