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Delete a code scanning analysis from a repository

DELETE
/repos/{owner}/{repo}/code-scanning/analyses/{analysis_id}

Deletes a specified code scanning analysis from a repository.

You can delete one analysis at a time. To delete a series of analyses, start with the most recent analysis and work backwards. Conceptually, the process is similar to the undo function in a text editor.

When you list the analyses for a repository, one or more will be identified as deletable in the response:

"deletable": true

An analysis is deletable when it’s the most recent in a set of analyses. Typically, a repository will have multiple sets of analyses for each enabled code scanning tool, where a set is determined by a unique combination of analysis values:

  • ref
  • tool
  • category

If you attempt to delete an analysis that is not the most recent in a set, you’ll get a 400 response with the message:

Analysis specified is not deletable.

The response from a successful DELETE operation provides you with two alternative URLs for deleting the next analysis in the set: next_analysis_url and confirm_delete_url. Use the next_analysis_url URL if you want to avoid accidentally deleting the final analysis in a set. This is a useful option if you want to preserve at least one analysis for the specified tool in your repository. Use the confirm_delete_url URL if you are content to remove all analyses for a tool. When you delete the last analysis in a set, the value of next_analysis_url and confirm_delete_url in the 200 response is null.

As an example of the deletion process, let’s imagine that you added a workflow that configured a particular code scanning tool to analyze the code in a repository. This tool has added 15 analyses: 10 on the default branch, and another 5 on a topic branch. You therefore have two separate sets of analyses for this tool. You’ve now decided that you want to remove all of the analyses for the tool. To do this you must make 15 separate deletion requests. To start, you must find an analysis that’s identified as deletable. Each set of analyses always has one that’s identified as deletable. Having found the deletable analysis for one of the two sets, delete this analysis and then continue deleting the next analysis in the set until they’re all deleted. Then repeat the process for the second set. The procedure therefore consists of a nested loop:

Outer loop:

  • List the analyses for the repository, filtered by tool.

  • Parse this list to find a deletable analysis. If found:

    Inner loop:

    • Delete the identified analysis.
    • Parse the response for the value of confirm_delete_url and, if found, use this in the next iteration.

The above process assumes that you want to remove all trace of the tool’s analyses from the GitHub user interface, for the specified repository, and it therefore uses the confirm_delete_url value. Alternatively, you could use the next_analysis_url value, which would leave the last analysis in each set undeleted to avoid removing a tool’s analysis entirely.

OAuth app tokens and personal access tokens (classic) need the repo scope to use this endpoint with private or public repositories, or the public_repo scope to use this endpoint with only public repositories.

API method documentation

Parameters

Section titled “ Parameters ”

Path Parameters

Section titled “ Path Parameters ”
owner
required
string

The account owner of the repository. The name is not case sensitive.

repo
required
string

The name of the repository without the .git extension. The name is not case sensitive.

analysis_id
required
integer

The ID of the analysis, as returned from the GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/code-scanning/analyses operation.

Query Parameters

Section titled “ Query Parameters ”
confirm_delete
string
nullable

Allow deletion if the specified analysis is the last in a set. If you attempt to delete the final analysis in a set without setting this parameter to true, you’ll get a 400 response with the message: Analysis is last of its type and deletion may result in the loss of historical alert data. Please specify confirm_delete.

Responses

Section titled “ Responses ”

200

Section titled “ 200 ”

Response

Media type application/json
Analysis deletion

Successful deletion of a code scanning analysis

object
next_analysis_url
required

Next deletable analysis in chain, without last analysis deletion confirmation

string format: uri
nullable
confirm_delete_url
required

Next deletable analysis in chain, with last analysis deletion confirmation

string format: uri
nullable
Examples
Example default-response

Default response 

{
  "next_analysis_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/hello-world/code-scanning/analyses/41",
  "confirm_delete_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/hello-world/code-scanning/analyses/41?confirm_delete"
}

400

Section titled “ 400 ”

Bad Request

Basic Error

Basic Error

object
message
string
documentation_url
string
url
string
status
string
Example generated 
{
  "message": "example",
  "documentation_url": "example",
  "url": "example",
  "status": "example"
}

403

Section titled “ 403 ”

Response if the repository is archived or if GitHub Advanced Security is not enabled for this repository

Media type application/json
Basic Error

Basic Error

object
message
string
documentation_url
string
url
string
status
string
Example generated 
{
  "message": "example",
  "documentation_url": "example",
  "url": "example",
  "status": "example"
}

404

Section titled “ 404 ”

Resource not found

Media type application/json
Basic Error

Basic Error

object
message
string
documentation_url
string
url
string
status
string
Example generated 
{
  "message": "example",
  "documentation_url": "example",
  "url": "example",
  "status": "example"
}

503

Section titled “ 503 ”

Service unavailable

Media type application/json
object
code
string
message
string
documentation_url
string
Example generated 
{
  "code": "example",
  "message": "example",
  "documentation_url": "example"
}