Delete a tag Run in API Explorer
Removes a tag, or retires it. Which of the two happened is in
outcome, and the two are not the same act: one ends the tag, and the
other does not. Needs audience: write, and is a write.
deleted. No article was ever addressed to this tag, so it is
removed outright and its assignments go with it. Asking for it
afterwards answers 404. Creating a tag and changing your mind leaves
nothing behind.
retired. An article was addressed to this tag, so the tag is kept
and marked retired instead, because the audience of an article that has
already been sent does not change retroactively. That has four
consequences, and the first is the one to read twice:
- Everyone holding the tag goes on holding it, and goes on being able
to read every article it was addressed to, on the web as well as in
the inbox, evaluated live on every read rather than settled at send
time.
tag.known_subscriber_countin the response is what it was, not zero. Retiring a tag revokes nobody's access to anything. - It stops being offered. It is absent from the tag list unless
include_retired=trueasks for it, and no new holder can be added, because Apply a tag to a subscriber refuses a retired tag. - It stays addressable.
GET /tags/{tag}resolves it either way, so a client rendering the audience of an article sent last year still finds the name behind the identifier. - Its name is free for a new tag to take.
If what you want is to take access away, take the tag off the people
holding it with Take a tag off a subscriber
(DELETE /subscribers/{subscriber}/tags/{tag}), one subscriber at a
time. That operation works on a retired tag for exactly this reason.
Deleting the tag is not that operation and cannot be made into it.
Retirement is final. Deleting a tag that is already retired answers
200 with the retirement it already made and never removes the row:
the holders a retirement kept are the ones still deciding who may read
what the tag was addressed to.
Publishes no event.
Headers
-
A value of your choosing naming the change this request is making.
Send the same value again to retry the same request. Commune replays the answer the first attempt gave instead of making the change twice, and marks the replay with an
Idempotent-Replay: trueresponse header. Send a different value for a different change: a key reused for a request that differs in any way answers409, because replaying an answer to a question you did not ask is a wrong answer you could not detect.A UUID per change is the usual choice. Remembered for 24 hours, per credential, so two credentials choosing the same value never see each other's answers.
Required, not optional.
Minimum length is
1, maximum length is255. -
The contract version this request is written against. Every version published so far is a release date (
YYYY-MM-DD), which is why the examples look like one, but the value is an opaque identifier: match it against the versions this API publishes rather than parsing it, because a future one may not be only a date. An unknown value answers400withinvalid_version.Omitting the header pins the request to the version that was current when the API key was issued, so an integration keeps working when a newer version ships.
Minimum length is
1.
Responses
-
What became of the tag. Read
outcomebefore anything else: aretiredtag is still deciding who may read the articles it was addressed to. -
The request was malformed, and the same request will fail the same way until it is changed.
paramnames the parameter or header at fault when there is exactly one, andallowed_valueslists what it accepts when that is a finite set. The code isbad_requestfor every case below except the last.- A query parameter: one the operation does not have, a value
outside its set, range or format (an unparseable cursor, an unknown
expandpath orfieldsname, an identifier that is not a UUID), or a required one left out, such asqon a search ornewsletterwhen the credential reaches more than one. - The request body: not JSON, not the shape the operation reads,
a property it does not write, or a value of the wrong type, length
or format.
paramis absent here, since the body is not a parameter, and the message names the property. - The
Idempotency-Keyheader, on an operation that changes something: missing, or a value this API will not store. - An unrecognised
Commune-Version, which answers with its own code,invalid_version, because it is never fixed by changing the body.
- A query parameter: one the operation does not have, a value
outside its set, range or format (an unparseable cursor, an unknown
-
No credential was presented, or it is malformed, unknown, revoked or expired, or it is an access token minted for a different audience.
Every one of these answers identically, down to the wording and the headers, so a refusal never confirms that a string was once real.
-
The credential is allowed to do this but the newsletter's plan does not include it.
Two surfaces can answer it: insights, the engagement and metrics operations, which are the only reads Commune reserves the right to meter, and writing, every operation that changes something.
Every other read stays free on every plan, so a credential refused at one of these can still read everything else. The body names the plan the newsletter is on and the plans that would work.
This status is predictable and should not be how you discover it.
GET /newsletters/{newsletter}/entitlementsanswers the same question in advance, carrying the same plan list this puts inallowed_valuesand the same sentence it puts inmessage. Read it once at the start of a run rather than finding out in the middle of one. -
The credential is valid but is not allowed to do this. Two codes answer with this status, and
error.codesays which.insufficient_scope: it does not hold the permission. The operation needs, say,audience: readon the newsletter addressed, and this credential holds less than that there.allowed_valuescarries the permission that was needed, and the message says what the credential does hold on that newsletter, because a credential granted the wrong family and a credential belonging to somebody whose standing on the team has narrowed look identical without it. The answer can differ per newsletter: the same credential may be allowed here and refused on the next one it reaches.The same code answers an operation that needs the account permission from a credential that does not carry it. That permission is about the person a credential belongs to rather than about any newsletter, so nothing granted on a newsletter adds up to it. It is granted on the credential itself, when a key is minted or when an authorization asks for
account:read.And it answers a parameter the credential may send, but not with the value it sent: a filter a credential holding only
readpermissions may not use, or anexpandpath whose rows need a permission the operation does not.paramnames the parameter, andallowed_valuescarries what this credential may send instead, or is absent when it may send nothing there at all.forbidden: it may not act here at all. Either the credential does not reach the newsletter addressed, because it was never granted it or because the person it belongs to can no longer act on it, or it reaches no newsletter at all;paramisnewsletter, andGET /newsletterslists the ones it does reach. Or, onDELETE /api-keys/{key}, the credential named belongs to somebody else. Neither carriesallowed_values, because there is no value to send instead. -
No such resource, or the key is not allowed to know that it exists. Commune answers
404rather than403where distinguishing the two would leak the existence of private content. -
The request collided with something. On a write this is always the
Idempotency-Key, in one of two ways, and the message says which.Either the key was already used for a different request, which is refused rather than answered with the earlier request's result. Or an earlier request using the same key has not finished, or never reported an outcome, in which case this one was not run and the key becomes usable again shortly.
Nothing was changed by a request that answers this.
-
Too many requests. Back off and retry after the interval named by the
Retry-Afterresponse header.One of the budgets in
RateLimit-Policyran out, and theRateLimit-*headers on this response say which and when it resets. -
Something failed inside Commune. The request may be retried.
curl \
--request DELETE 'https://api.usecommune.com/tags/{tag}' \
--header "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
--header "Idempotency-Key: 3f7c1a26-9b0e-4f5a-9a2c-2c8f1d6b4e77" \
--header "Commune-Version: 2026-08-26"
{
"object": "tag_deletion",
"id": "cc33dd44-ee55-4f66-8a77-112233445566",
"outcome": "deleted",
"tag": null
}
{
"object": "tag_deletion",
"id": "aa11bb22-cc33-4d44-8e55-ff6677889900",
"outcome": "retired",
"tag": {
"object": "tag",
"id": "aa11bb22-cc33-4d44-8e55-ff6677889900",
"newsletter": {
"object": "newsletter",
"id": "7d3f1c02-58a1-4a4e-9a0b-2f6d1c9e4411"
},
"name": "Founding member",
"known_subscriber_count": 214,
"retired": true,
"retired_at": "2026-09-29T09:15:00Z",
"created_at": "2025-06-11T08:45:00Z"
}
}
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
# Headers
WWW-Authenticate: string
# Payload
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
# Headers
Retry-After: 42
# Payload
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
# Headers
Retry-After: 42
# Payload
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}
{
"error": {
"code": "bad_request",
"message": "Newsletter not found.",
"param": "cursor",
"allowed_values": [
"subscribed",
"unsubscribed",
"bounced",
"complained",
"pending"
],
"request_id": "req_01j9c8h1q7m3n4p5r6s7t8u9v0",
"docs_url": "https://usecommune.dev/errors/not_found"
}
}