Restore, Force Delete & Purge

SoftDeleteService Methods

restore()

Restore a soft-deleted record by clearing its deletedAt (and deletedBy) field. If cascade is configured, child records are restored as well.

// Restore a soft-deleted user
@Post(':id/restore')
restore(@Param('id') id: string) {
  return this.softDelete.restore('User', { id: +id });
}

forceDelete()

Permanently delete a record from the database, bypassing soft-delete logic entirely.

purge()

Permanently remove old soft-deleted records. Use with @nestjs/schedule to run on a schedule.

---

Purge (Scheduled Hard-Delete)

Use SoftDeleteService.purge() with @nestjs/schedule to permanently remove old soft-deleted records on a schedule.

npm install @nestjs/schedule

import { Injectable } from '@nestjs/common';
import { Cron, CronExpression } from '@nestjs/schedule';
import { SoftDeleteService } from '@nestarc/soft-delete';

@Injectable()
export class PurgeService {
  constructor(private readonly softDelete: SoftDeleteService) {}

  @Cron(CronExpression.EVERY_DAY_AT_MIDNIGHT)
  async purgeOldRecords() {
    const thirtyDaysAgo = new Date(Date.now() - 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);

    const users = await this.softDelete.purge('User', { olderThan: thirtyDaysAgo });
    const posts = await this.softDelete.purge('Post', { olderThan: thirtyDaysAgo });

    console.log(`Purged ${users.count} users, ${posts.count} posts`);
  }
}

purge() also accepts an optional where for additional filtering:

await this.softDelete.purge('Post', {
  olderThan: thirtyDaysAgo,
  where: { authorId: userId },
});

---

Standalone Usage

Use createPrismaSoftDeleteExtension() without NestJS — useful in scripts, tests, or non-NestJS projects:

import { PrismaClient } from '@prisma/client';
import { createPrismaSoftDeleteExtension } from '@nestarc/soft-delete';

const prisma = new PrismaClient().$extends(
  createPrismaSoftDeleteExtension({
    softDeleteModels: ['User', 'Post', 'Comment'],
    deletedAtField: 'deletedAt',
    deletedByField: 'deletedBy',
    cascade: {
      User: ['Post'],
      Post: ['Comment'],
    },
    maxCascadeDepth: 3,
  }),
);

// delete is now a soft-delete
await prisma.user.delete({ where: { id: 1 } });

// findMany automatically excludes soft-deleted rows
const activeUsers = await prisma.user.findMany();

SoftDeleteExtensionOptions

Option	Type	Default	Description
softDeleteModels	string[]	—	Required. Models to enable soft-delete for.
deletedAtField	string	'deletedAt'	Field that stores the soft-delete timestamp.
deletedByField	string | null	null	Field to store actor ID.
cascade	Record<string, string[]>	undefined	Parent-to-children cascade map.
maxCascadeDepth	number	3	Maximum cascade depth.
eventEmitter	{ emitSoftDeleted: (event) => void } | null	null	Optional custom event emitter.