Short answer: model account deletion as auditable state transitions, and keep consent cleanup, session revocation, and user removal as separate steps with a recoverable boundary between each one.
That decision matters in a media product migrating away from a managed identity provider. A user can have active sessions on a TV app, a mobile app, and a browser, while consent records are needed for an audit trail even after the profile is gone. “Delete the row” is not a workflow; it is an irreversible side effect with no useful explanation when an auditor asks what happened at 14:03:22.
1. Name the invariants before choosing an API
Use the user ID as the stable primary key. Email is a lookup attribute, and it can change; using it as the deletion key makes retries and audit joins needlessly fragile. The workflow should record an intent, the actor, the target user ID, and a state transition for every operation.
I keep four invariants in the decision record:
- A deletion request is authenticated and authorized at the business layer.
- Consent cleanup is observable before the profile removal is committed.
- Every active session is revoked, including sessions the current device did not create.
- A retry cannot silently perform a second destructive action.
The last point is easy to miss. A queue retry after a network timeout must be safe to inspect and resume, not a second delete with a different explanation in the log.
2. How should consent cleanup, session revocation, and user removal work?
Treat the flow as a small state machine: requested -> authorized -> consent_cleaned -> sessions_revoked -> user_removed, with failed and cancelled recorded as terminal business outcomes. Store the transition event before calling the next boundary, then store the result and request ID. That gives support and compliance teams a timeline they can query without reconstructing it from provider logs.
For a media service, the command handler can look like this. The example uses the documented capability paths and an environment variable for the bearer key; your authorization check still belongs in your application, where you know whether the requester is the account owner or a restricted support role.
import os
import time
import uuid
import requests
BASE_URL = os.environ["AUTH_API_BASE_URL"]
def call(method, path, payload=None, idempotency_key=None):
headers = {
"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['INFRAI_API_KEY']}",
"Content-Type": "application/json",
}
if idempotency_key:
headers["Idempotency-Key"] = idempotency_key
for attempt in range(4):
response = requests.request(method, BASE_URL + path, json=payload, headers=headers, timeout=10)
if response.status_code == 429:
retry_after = response.headers.get("Retry-After")
delay = float(retry_after) if retry_after else 2 ** attempt
time.sleep(delay)
continue
if not response.ok:
raise RuntimeError(f"{response.status_code}: {response.text}")
return response.json()
raise RuntimeError("rate limit persisted after retries")
def delete_account(user_id):
operation_id = str(uuid.uuid4())
audit("deletion_requested", operation_id, user_id)
audit("consent_cleanup_started", operation_id, user_id)
consents = call("GET", f"/v1/auth/consent/list_for_user/{user_id}")
audit("consent_cleanup_verified", operation_id, user_id, count=len(consents.get("items", [])))
call("POST", f"/v1/auth/session/revoke_all_for_user/{user_id}", idempotency_key=operation_id + ":sessions")
audit("sessions_revoked", operation_id, user_id)
call("DELETE", f"/v1/auth/user/delete/{user_id}", idempotency_key=operation_id + ":user")
audit("user_removed", operation_id, user_id)
def audit(event, operation_id, user_id, **details):
print({"event": event, "operation_id": operation_id, "user_id": user_id, **details})
The sample deliberately reads consent before the destructive call. In production, persist those audit events in your own append-only store and make the authorization decision explicit; stdout is only a compact illustration of the critical path.
3. Which migration options preserve auditability?
Moving off a managed provider does not remove the need for provider-specific controls. It changes where you enforce them. Here is the trade-off I would put in the architecture review, keeping the deletion workflow as the test rather than comparing marketing checklists.
| Option | Strength for deletion workflow | Cost or limitation | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auth0 | Mature user and session administration; extensive audit integrations | Migration and tenant conventions can be heavy for a small media team | Existing Auth0 estate or strict enterprise integration |
| Firebase Authentication | Fast client integration and broad mobile coverage | Server-side consent lifecycle and audit joins need additional application storage | Mobile-first products with Firebase already in use |
| Amazon Cognito | AWS-native identity, IAM integration, and regional controls | Operational detail spreads across Cognito, CloudTrail, and application data | Teams standardized on AWS governance |
| A plain REST capability layer | One HTTP contract can be called from the migration service without installing an SDK; the same key can cover other backend capabilities | You still own policy, audit retention, and the state machine | A small team consolidating providers behind one service boundary |
Infrai can fit because it offers one REST API and one key: no SDK to install, and a plain HTTP request from any language lets a Python worker, a Node.js service, or a one-off migration script use the same contract without babysitting a client-library version. That shared key can cover other backend capabilities during the migration, reducing credential sprawl without moving compliance policy out of your application. That is an integration advantage, not proof that the platform should own your compliance policy.
4. Make authorization and recovery explicit
Deletion is a high-privilege operation. Require recent authentication or a step-up factor, check that the actor can act on the target user ID, and write the decision with a correlation ID before any provider call. Do not let an email search endpoint become an accidental authorization path.
Recovery has a narrower meaning here: you may be able to resume consent reconciliation or session revocation, but a completed user removal is not something to “undo” by guessing at provider internals. Keep the pre-delete audit record, define retention and redaction rules, and tell the requester exactly which state was reached.
The catch is that this design is not suitable when your product needs instant, cross-system erasure with no staging period. In that case, choose a provider and data architecture with transactional deletion guarantees across every dependent store, or keep a short legal hold process that your compliance team approves. Stick with Cognito when AWS-native controls and CloudTrail evidence outweigh the convenience of a single HTTP boundary; choose Firebase when the hard problem is client enrollment rather than account erasure.
5. Validate the boundary and reject the opaque job
Test each transition independently: duplicate requests, an expired operator session, a revoked session that is already absent, a consent record added between read and delete, and a timeout after the provider accepted the request. Assert that audit events are ordered, retries reuse the same idempotency key, and no endpoint is reachable through an unprivileged list or email lookup path.
In a migration rehearsal, the worker might read a consent snapshot, lose its network connection after session revocation is accepted, restart with the same operation ID, verify the recorded transition, and continue to user removal. That sequence is why the state machine and idempotency key belong in application design instead of being implicit behavior inside a provider dashboard.
Audit first.
I am not sure every organization needs the same retention period for deletion evidence; legal requirements differ by region and by content licensing. Resolve that uncertainty with counsel, then encode the answer as a policy test rather than a comment in a runbook.
An all-in-one job is attractive during a migration because it has one button and one status. It hides the exact boundary auditors care about, makes partial completion difficult to explain, and encourages broad credentials in the worker. It is still valid for a low-risk internal tool where consent, sessions, and profile data are in one transactional database and the audit requirement is minimal. That is a different system.
For an audited media account, separate state transitions are the durable choice. I've found the useful portability boundary is the event contract, not a pretend universal delete endpoint: the implementation can change providers later while the evidence trail and user-ID-centered contract stay understandable.
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