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carry retract

Retract claims from entities – remove data.

Synopsis

carry retract <TARGET|FILE|-> [this=<ENTITY>] [FIELD[=VALUE] ...] [--repo <PATH>] [--format <FMT>]

Description

Retract removes claims from the indexes. Retracted claims no longer appear in query results.

Input Modes

ModeSyntaxDescription
Targetcarry retract <domain-or-concept> this=<entity> field ...Retract from CLI arguments
Filecarry retract <file.yaml>Retract from a YAML or JSON file
Stdincarry retract -Retract from standard input

Arguments

ArgumentDescription
TARGETDomain (e.g., com.app.person) or concept name (e.g., person)
FILEPath to a YAML or JSON file
-Read from stdin

Fields

SyntaxDescription
fieldRetract this field regardless of its current value
field=valueRetract only if the claim matches this exact value
this=<DID>The entity to retract from (required for target mode)

Using field=value is useful for cardinality: many attributes where an entity has multiple values and you only want to remove one.

Options

FlagDescription
--repo <PATH>Path to .carry/ repository
--format <FMT>Output format

Examples

# Retract a field (any value)
carry retract person this=did:key:zAlice age

# Retract a specific value (for multi-valued fields)
carry retract person this=did:key:zAlice tag=urgent

# Retract using a domain
carry retract com.app.person this=did:key:zAlice name age

# Retract all claims on an entity
carry retract com.app.person this=did:key:zAlice

# Retract from a file
carry retract retractions.yaml

# Retract from stdin (pipe query output to remove matching data)
carry query person name="Alice" --format triples | carry retract -

Notes

  • Unlike assert, target-mode retract requires this= to identify which entity to modify.
  • Other claims on the entity are unaffected – only the specified fields are retracted.
  • Retracted claims are removed from the indexes and no longer appear in query results.
  • If no fields are specified with this=, all claims on that entity are retracted.