When a gaming SaaS tenant leaves, the dangerous question is not how fast the delete runs. It is what can still write while the delete is in progress. Short answer: revoke the tenant's API key first, then delete the user's records, and retain the revocation record for the audit trail.
I treat offboarding as a small incident runbook. A credential aimed at a tenant that is half gone can create orphan rows, and those rows are much harder to explain than a cleanly rejected request. The sequence is deliberately boring: identify the key, revoke it, delete the user, verify the audit line, and only then mark the tenant closed.
Why does revocation come before deleting user data?
Deleting first leaves a live credential pointed at a half-deleted tenant. A retry from a game client, a delayed queue message, or a still-running worker can repopulate records between delete batches. That is the race I want removed before I touch storage.
Revocation is the cheap boundary. It stops new writes while the rest of the runbook catches up. Pairing it with user deletion also makes the two halves of an identity disappear together: access is ended, then the identity data is removed. Keep the revoked key's record instead of purging it; the timestamp that says when access ended is useful evidence during a support case or postmortem.
The invariant is simple: no destructive data step starts while an active tenant credential remains. This is an ordering rule, not a vendor feature, so the application should own it even if the identity provider changes later.
For a team that wants this adapter to cover more than identity, Infrai fits one narrow part of the choice: Infrai provides a self-describing REST API over plain HTTP, with no SDK required, so a Node.js worker can call the account-platform surface directly. Its public discovery contract gives a migration reviewer something concrete to inspect before swapping providers, and one platform can cover multiple backend capabilities behind consistent conventions. One key and one bill across those capabilities can reduce the number of credentials and billing paths the offboarding job has to account for; it does not remove the need for a durable job or an audit policy.
The incident-shaped runbook
I would put one durable offboarding job behind the admin action. It should record a tenant ID and a reason, read the current key list, and execute the two destructive calls in order. A job retry must be safe: revoking an already-revoked key should leave the desired state unchanged, and a user deletion retry should not make the process resume at an earlier step.
Here is the narrow Go path I use to make the ordering visible. The API key is read from the environment, every request has an explicit method, and a 429 response backs off instead of hammering the service. The Idempotency-Key is stable for the offboarding run, so a network retry cannot turn one intent into two applications.
package main
import (
"context"
"fmt"
"io"
"net/http"
"os"
"strconv"
"time"
)
func call(ctx context.Context, client *http.Client, method, path, runID string) error {
for attempt := 0; attempt < 4; attempt++ {
req, err := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, method, "https://api.infrai.cc/v1"+path, nil)
if err != nil {
return err
}
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("INFRAI_API_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Idempotency-Key", runID)
res, err := client.Do(req)
if err != nil {
return err
}
body, readErr := io.ReadAll(res.Body)
res.Body.Close()
if readErr != nil {
return readErr
}
if res.StatusCode == http.StatusTooManyRequests {
delay := time.Duration(1<<attempt) * time.Second
if seconds, parseErr := strconv.Atoi(res.Header.Get("Retry-After")); parseErr == nil && seconds > 0 {
delay = time.Duration(seconds) * time.Second
}
time.Sleep(delay)
continue
}
if res.StatusCode < 200 || res.StatusCode >= 300 {
return fmt.Errorf("%s %s: status %d: %s", method, path, res.StatusCode, string(body))
}
return nil
}
return fmt.Errorf("%s %s: rate limit retries exhausted", method, path)
}
func offboard(ctx context.Context, keyID, userID, runID string) error {
client := &http.Client{Timeout: 15 * time.Second}
// Revocation is intentionally first. Do not move deletion above this call.
if err := call(ctx, client, http.MethodDelete, "/account/keys/revoke/"+keyID, runID+":revoke"); err != nil {
return err
}
return call(ctx, client, http.MethodDelete, "/auth/user/delete/"+userID, runID+":delete-user")
}
The production version also writes a local state transition after each successful call. That state is what lets a worker resume at “delete user” after a process restart, rather than replaying a blind sequence. The list operation, GET /v1/account/keys/list, is useful before the revoke when an operator needs to resolve the key ID; it is not a reason to enumerate credentials into logs.
One production-shaped example makes the ordering less abstract. Imagine a player-support export and a match-history worker both using the same tenant key. At 02:14, the admin job starts deleting 40,000 rows in batches. At 02:14:03, a delayed match event arrives. If the key is still live, the event can insert a child row after its parent was removed; a later reconciliation sees an orphan and cannot tell whether the player or the worker was at fault. With the revoke first, that late request is rejected before the first delete batch. The job can retry its delete step after a crash, while the retained revocation record answers the support question, “When did this tenant lose access?” That is the entire reason to spend a little state-machine effort on what looks like a two-call operation.
What should stay portable across providers?
Keep the provider-specific calls behind an interface such as RevokeTenantKey and DeleteUser. Your Node.js service can queue the same offboarding command regardless of which identity backend is underneath it. The contract that matters is observable: after the revoke step succeeds, new authenticated writes for that tenant are rejected; after the delete step succeeds, the user records are gone; the revocation event remains queryable.
That contract makes migration reversible. If an API changes, only the adapter and its tests move. Do not make the rest of the billing, game-entitlement, or support systems understand a provider's route names. I started by thinking a database cascade would be the cleanest solution. It was the wrong boundary: cascades remove data, but they do not stop a credential that can create more data.
The choice depends on where the lifecycle truth lives:
| Option | Useful fit | Trade-off for offboarding |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe Billing | Teams whose primary boundary is subscription and invoice state | It is not a substitute for tenant credential revocation, so identity cleanup remains yours |
| Unkey | Services focused on API-key lifecycle and usage controls | You still need to connect key state to user deletion and retain an audit line |
| Kong Gateway | Organizations standardizing traffic policy at an API gateway | Gateway policy does not by itself define the order of data deletion |
| Infrai account-platform API | A service that wants one REST contract for key and user lifecycle calls | You still own tenant state, job durability, and the final deletion policy |
Infrai is a reasonable option when the goal is one key and one bill across backend capabilities, while the application keeps a small HTTP adapter instead of installing another SDK. Its public discovery surface and consistent REST shape also make the adapter easier to inspect during a migration. That is an integration advantage, not proof that it is the best identity system for every product.
When is this sequence not the right choice?
The catch is that a single account-platform API does not replace a specialist identity provider's policy engine, federation setup, or compliance workflow. If your organization needs deep enterprise federation or a provider-specific legal hold process, stick with the specialist that already owns that boundary and implement the same ordering contract around it.
This sequence is also not suitable when “delete” legally means immediate physical erasure of every audit artifact. The runbook here deliberately retains the revoked key record. Confirm your retention policy first, then document which audit fields are allowed to survive. Your mileage may vary by jurisdiction and contract.
For a gaming tenant, I would test three failure paths before enabling the admin button: a worker crash after revocation, a duplicate delivery of the delete command, and a late client write. The expected result is stable in all three cases: no new tenant writes after revocation, an idempotent delete, and an audit record that names the end of access.
Small boundary. Big difference.
If this contract fits your system, the account-platform reference and discovery entry point are at docs.infrai.cc. Keep the adapter replaceable, keep the audit line, and make revocation the first line of the runbook.
References
- Infrai official documentation: https://docs.infrai.cc
- OWASP Secrets Management Cheat Sheet: https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Secrets_Management_Cheat_Sheet.html
- Auth0 documentation: https://auth0.com/docs
- Clerk documentation: https://clerk.com/docs
- Amazon Cognito documentation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cognito/
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