Cloudflare D1: act promptly after a database deletion
A response checklist for publishers using D1: assign an owner, record the incident and verify the site before restoring traffic.
On October 23, Cloudflare announced that D1 undelete requests are accepted only within seven days of deletion. Later requests fail.
This matters to publishers whose own websites use D1, regardless of their audience’s language. Do not apply this rule to other databases. The following is our editorial response plan, not a description of AffiliateCore infrastructure.
Prepare before an incident
Assign a recovery owner and a backup contact. Keep account and database identifiers, dependent pages and the location of a verified backup in a restricted project record. Do not put access tokens in that record.
Incident template: deletion time and time zone; affected database; owner; unavailable pages; action taken; verification result. Remove secrets and personal information from logs before sharing them with a developer.
Two hypothetical scenarios
Detected immediately. Suppose a catalogue stops loading after maintenance. Confirm deletion from logs rather than a browser error alone. Once confirmed, ask an authorized specialist to follow the official recovery API reference. Then sample records, open dependent pages and follow an affiliate link. Resume traffic after checking the working journey, not merely a successful API response.
Detected late. Suppose a little-used section went unchecked for several days. Establish the exact deletion time; avoid repeating requests without a diagnosis. If this recovery route is unavailable, assess your own backup in an isolated environment. Do not present incomplete data as a complete catalogue; pause dependent placements until verified.
A separate recovery boundary
The API reference warns that after undelete, Time Travel cannot return to states at or before the undeletion. Do not use deletion as a recovery exercise on a live site.
If you use AffiliateCore, check your restored page’s affiliate journey and information in the publisher account. Restoring an external website does not automatically approve conversions or imply that AffiliateCore uses D1.