Delete AI chat sessions when a site is deleted by bcotrim · Pull Request #4132 · Automattic/studio

bcotrim · 2026-07-08T20:46:22Z

Related issues

Related to STU-1985 (follow-up: chat sessions were orphaned when their site was deleted)

How AI was used in this PR

Implemented with Claude Code: mapped the delete flows, wrote the helper, hook, and tests. Verified with lint, typecheck, unit tests, and a CLI smoke test (built CLI against a seeded fake $HOME). Human-reviewed before opening.

Proposed Changes

Deleting a site currently leaves its AI chat sessions orphaned: their site group no longer exists, so they pile up under Unassigned in the sidebar while the session files and placements silently linger.
With this change, deleting a site — from the desktop app, the CLI, or the local API server — deletes its chat sessions outright: the transcript JSONL (plus sidecars), the site placement, and any star/archive flags. Per review discussion, deletion (rather than archiving) is the right call because the sessions folder is hidden and there's no way to restore archived chats, unlike site files.
Sessions are matched to the deleted site by site id or site path, so sessions with a stale placement field are still caught (and this stays correct alongside the in-flight switch of sidebar grouping from path- to id-keyed).
Session cleanup is best-effort: a failure is logged but never blocks the site deletion itself.

Testing Instructions

Create a site and start a couple of AI chat sessions bound to it.
Delete the site (agentic UI, desktop delete dialog, or studio site delete --path <site>).
Verify the chats disappear from the sidebar immediately — neither under the (now gone) site group nor under Unassigned — including when the delete was run from a terminal while the app is open.
Verify the session JSONL files are removed from disk (~/Library/Application Support/Studio/sessions on macOS) and ~/.studio/shared.json / app.json no longer reference those session ids.
Verify sessions belonging to other sites are untouched (files, placements, and starred flags).
Unit tests: npm test -- packages/common/ai/sessions/tests/delete-sessions-for-site.test.ts apps/cli/commands/site/tests/delete.test.ts

Pre-merge Checklist

Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

bcotrim · 2026-07-09T20:08:25Z

@shaunandrews @youknowriad What do you think about deleting chat sessions when their site is deleted? For now I only implemented archiving, but I think there's a case to be made that a session for a site that no longer exists is not very useful. A middle ground could be tying it to the "Delete site files" checkbox: keep the transcripts unless the user also chose to delete the site's files.

youknowriad · 2026-07-09T20:19:24Z

I feel like we should just delete the sessions when a site is deleted, the reason is that the folder where they live is hidden and there's no way to restore them, unlike the site files.

wpmobilebot · 2026-07-09T20:24:52Z

📊 Performance Test Results

Comparing 7bc7bcc vs trunk

app-size

Metric	trunk	`7bc7bcc`	Diff	Change
App Size (Mac)	1354.38 MB	1354.40 MB	+0.02 MB	⚪ 0.0%

site-editor

Metric	trunk	`7bc7bcc`	Diff	Change
load	1105 ms	1088 ms	17 ms	⚪ 0.0%

site-startup

Metric	trunk	`7bc7bcc`	Diff	Change
siteCreation	7017 ms	6994 ms	23 ms	⚪ 0.0%
siteStartup	2356 ms	2365 ms	+9 ms	⚪ 0.0%

Results are median values from multiple test runs.

Legend: 🟢 Improvement (faster) | 🔴 Regression (slower) | ⚪ No change (<50ms diff)

…studio into archive-chats-on-site-delete

shaunandrews · 2026-07-09T22:04:12Z

Makes sense to delete them.

katinthehatsite

I tested this and it mostly works fine but I noticed that sometimes I hit the Session not found screen. For example, I click on Delete site for the site that has sessions and stay on the open session for that site and after a couple of seconds, I can see the message Session not found:

Screen.Recording.2026-07-13.at.3.13.55.PM.mov

I think we can switch to the next available site once the deletion completed or started to avoid hitting that screen. What do you think?

…ot found

bcotrim · 2026-07-13T15:02:54Z

I think we can switch to the next available site once the deletion completed or started to avoid hitting that screen. What do you think?

Done in bcd84ea
Can you please take another look? 🙇

katinthehatsite · 2026-07-14T07:33:04Z

Done in bcd84ea
Can you please take another look? 🙇

Thanks for making the changes! I don't see the error related to the sessions not found anymore but I do see the brief flash of error when I remain on the chat session of the site that is being deleted:

Screen.Recording.2026-07-14.at.9.31.31.AM.mov

Is that happening on your end as well?

…is gone

…Error flash

…e-delete # Conflicts: # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.test.tsx # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.tsx # apps/ui/src/ui-classic/components/session-view/style.module.css

bcotrim · 2026-07-14T11:24:11Z

Thanks for making the changes! I don't see the error related to the sessions not found anymore but I do see the brief flash of error when I remain on the chat session of the site that is being deleted:

Is that happening on your end as well?

It was! Nice catch! Should be fixed now, can you take another look please?

…e-delete # Conflicts: # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.test.tsx # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.tsx

…e-delete # Conflicts: # apps/ui/src/data/core/connectors/ipc/index.ts # apps/ui/src/ui-classic/router/layout-root/index.tsx

sejas

Works as expected. I noticed my second site was selected instead of the first one, so I created a small PR against this one to fix that and fix the scroll to the top. #4287

Otherwise looks good. Great work Bernardo!

sejas · 2026-07-21T16:56:37Z

+		await deleteSharedSession( sessionId );
+		await deleteAiSessionPlacement( sessionId );


We could consider moving these isnide the try/catch to avoid an error to prevent running the rest of the loop.

@sejas

…te (#4292) ## Related issues  - Related to #4132 - Addresses @sejas's review suggestion from that PR ## How AI was used in this PR  AI was used to implement the focused robustness change, add the regression test, and run validation. ## Proposed Changes  - Ensure deleting a site continues removing its remaining AI chat sessions when one session's metadata cleanup fails. - Preserve best-effort metadata cleanup when a session file is already missing. ## Testing Instructions  - Run `npx eslint --fix packages/common/ai/sessions/manage.ts packages/common/ai/sessions/tests/delete-sessions-for-site.test.ts`. - Run `npm run typecheck`. - Run `npm test -- packages/common/ai/sessions/tests/delete-sessions-for-site.test.ts` and confirm all three tests pass. ## Pre-merge Checklist  - [x] Have you checked for TypeScript, React or other console errors?

Archive AI chat sessions when a site is deleted

4cd8855

github-actions Bot assigned bcotrim Jul 8, 2026

bcotrim added 2 commits July 9, 2026 20:51

Refresh session list after deleting a site in agentic UI

a9a7c53

Refresh session list on external site-delete events

c0fd228

bcotrim marked this pull request as ready for review July 9, 2026 20:05

bcotrim requested review from a team, katinthehatsite, shaunandrews and youknowriad July 9, 2026 20:05

Merge branch 'trunk' into archive-chats-on-site-delete

034b979

bcotrim added 2 commits July 9, 2026 22:02

Delete chat sessions instead of archiving when a site is deleted

a30762c

Merge branch 'archive-chats-on-site-delete' of github.com:Automattic/…

dc94b79

…studio into archive-chats-on-site-delete

bcotrim changed the title ~~Archive AI chat sessions when a site is deleted~~ Jul 9, 2026

katinthehatsite reviewed Jul 13, 2026

View reviewed changes

Redirect away from a deleted site's chat instead of showing Session n…

bcd84ea

…ot found

bcotrim requested a review from katinthehatsite July 13, 2026 15:03

Redirect away from a deleted site's chat on external site deletions

db517b0

bcotrim added 4 commits July 14, 2026 09:55

Merge branch 'trunk' into archive-chats-on-site-delete

0727046

Redirect instead of flashing Session not found when a chat's session …

3093a54

…is gone

Keep in-flight redirect fetch alive on site delete to avoid Cancelled…

99c2957

…Error flash

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/trunk' into archive-chats-on-sit…

18480ec

…e-delete # Conflicts: # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.test.tsx # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.tsx # apps/ui/src/ui-classic/components/session-view/style.module.css

bcotrim mentioned this pull request Jul 15, 2026

Agentic UI: Make the sidebar site-centric #4191

Merged

1 task

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/trunk' into archive-chats-on-sit…

32fadbb

…e-delete # Conflicts: # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.test.tsx # apps/ui/src/components/site-list/index.tsx

This was referenced Jul 16, 2026

Agentic UI: Return to the last visited site instead of the first site #4130

Merged

Agentic UI: Simplify Sidebar with new Site-Centric Focus #3998

Closed

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/trunk' into archive-chats-on-sit…

7bc7bcc

…e-delete # Conflicts: # apps/ui/src/data/core/connectors/ipc/index.ts # apps/ui/src/ui-classic/router/layout-root/index.tsx

bcotrim requested review from nightnei and sejas July 20, 2026 12:56

sejas mentioned this pull request Jul 21, 2026

Select the sidebar's top site and scroll to top after deleting a site #4287

Closed

1 task

sejas approved these changes Jul 21, 2026

View reviewed changes

bcotrim merged commit dafd601 into trunk Jul 21, 2026
15 checks passed

bcotrim deleted the archive-chats-on-site-delete branch July 21, 2026 19:15

bcotrim mentioned this pull request Jul 21, 2026

Continue chat-session cleanup when one session fails during site delete #4292

Merged

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Delete AI chat sessions when a site is deleted - #4132

Delete AI chat sessions when a site is deleted#4132
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bcotrim commented Jul 8, 2026 •

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		await deleteSharedSession( sessionId );
		await deleteAiSessionPlacement( sessionId );

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Related issues

How AI was used in this PR

Proposed Changes

Testing Instructions

Pre-merge Checklist

bcotrim commented Jul 9, 2026

youknowriad commented Jul 9, 2026

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📊 Performance Test Results

app-size

site-editor

site-startup

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