Destructive actions

Deleting, revoking and resetting destroy work. The goal is to make recovery easy — and, where recovery is impossible, to make the mistake hard.

Undo over confirmation#

A confirmation dialog on every delete trains people to click Yes without reading. If an action can be reversed, do it immediately and offer undo in a toast. It's faster for the 99% who meant it and safer for the 1% who didn't.

Confirm what can't be undone#

When an action is irreversible — deleting a project, revoking keys, removing a member's access — confirm with an AlertDialog:

• Name the object in the title: Delete “acme-web”?
• State the consequence in the description: what will be lost, and that it can't be undone.
• Label buttons with verbs. Delete project and Keep project — never Yes and No.
• Use the destructive variant only on the confirming button.
• For high-stakes actions, require typing the name. It turns a reflexive click into a deliberate act.

Placement#

• Keep destructive actions away from frequent ones. A Delete button next to Save will eventually be clicked by mistake.
• In menus, put destructive items last, after a separator, using variant="destructive".
• On settings pages, group them in a danger zone at the end of the page.