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Consul KV Delete

Command: consul kv delete

Corresponding HTTP API Endpoint: [DELETE] /v1/kv/:key

The kv delete command removes the value from Consul's KV store at the given path. If no key exists at the path, no action is taken.

The table below shows this command's required ACLs. Configuration of blocking queries and agent caching are not supported from commands, but may be from the corresponding HTTP endpoint.

ACL Required
key:write

Usage

Usage: consul kv delete [options] KEY_OR_PREFIX

Command Options

  • -cas - Perform a Check-And-Set operation. To use this option, the -modify-index flag must also be set. The default value is false.

  • -modify-index=<int> - Specifies an unsigned integer that represents the ModifyIndex of the key. Used in combination with the -cas flag.

  • -recurse - Recursively delete all keys with the path. The default value is false.

Enterprise Options

  • -partition=<string> - Enterprise Specifies the partition to query. If not provided, the partition is inferred from the request's ACL token, or defaults to the default partition.
  • -namespace=<string> - Specifies the namespace to query. If not provided, the namespace will be inferred from the request's ACL token, or will default to the default namespace. Namespaces are a Consul Enterprise feature added in v1.7.0.

API Options

  • -ca-file=<value> - Path to a CA file to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CACERT environment variable.

  • -ca-path=<value> - Path to a directory of CA certificates to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CAPATH environment variable.

  • -client-cert=<value> - Path to a client cert file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT environment variable.

  • -client-key=<value> - Path to a client key file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY environment variable.

  • -http-addr=<addr> - Address of the Consul agent with the port. This can be an IP address or DNS address, but it must include the port. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR environment variable. In Consul 0.8 and later, the default value is http://127.0.0.1:8500, and https can optionally be used instead. The scheme can also be set to HTTPS by setting the environment variable CONSUL_HTTP_SSL=true. This may be a unix domain socket using unix:///path/to/socket if the agent is configured to listen that way.

  • -tls-server-name=<value> - The server name to use as the SNI host when connecting via TLS. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_TLS_SERVER_NAME environment variable.

  • -token=<value> - ACL token to use in the request. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. If unspecified, the query will default to the token of the Consul agent at the HTTP address.

  • -token-file=<value> - File containing the ACL token to use in the request instead of one specified via the -token argument or CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN_FILE environment variable.

  • -datacenter=<name> - Name of the datacenter to query. If unspecified, the query will default to the datacenter of the Consul agent at the HTTP address.

  • -stale - Permit any Consul server (non-leader) to respond to this request. This allows for lower latency and higher throughput, but can result in stale data. This option has no effect on non-read operations. The default value is false.

Examples

To remove the value for the key named "redis/config/connections" in the KV store:

$ consul kv delete redis/config/connections
Success! Deleted key: redis/config/connections

If the key does not exist, the command will not error, and a success message will be returned:

$ consul kv delete not-a-real-key
Success! Deleted key: not-a-real-key

To only delete a key if it has not been modified since a given index, specify the -cas and -modify-index flags:

$ consul kv get -detailed redis/config/connections | grep ModifyIndex
ModifyIndex      456

$ consul kv delete -cas -modify-index=123 redis/config/connections
Error! Did not delete key redis/config/connections: CAS failed

$ consul kv delete -cas -modify-index=456 redis/config/connections
Success! Deleted key: redis/config/connections

To recursively delete all keys that start with a given prefix, specify the -recurse flag:

$ consul kv delete -recurse redis/
Success! Deleted keys with prefix: redis/

Trailing slashes are important in the recursive delete operation, since Consul performs a greedy match on the provided prefix. If you were to use "foo" as the key, this would recursively delete any key starting with those letters such as "foo", "food", and "football" not just "foo". To ensure you are deleting a folder, always use a trailing slash.

It is not valid to combine the -cas option with -recurse, since you are deleting multiple keys under a prefix in a single operation:

$ consul kv delete -cas -recurse redis/
Cannot specify both -cas and -recurse!