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[v4 beta] Include descendants in hierarchy delete confirmation counts

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#18,870 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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@dharshni1518 is already working on this.

Since Oct 22, 2026.

Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
node.js, react, typescript
Domain
backend, frontend

Research direction

Start with packages/ui/src/providers/DocumentSelection/index.tsx and packages/ui/src/elements/DeleteMany/index.tsx to trace how selected IDs reach the confirmation, then read packages/payload/src/hierarchy/hooks/collectionBeforeDelete.ts for cascade behavior. Check the single-document confirmation path and how Trash changes deletion behavior. Done means single and bulk confirmations report the unique total and descendant count using the server-side deletion rules, including when selected documents overlap.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Bug

Permanently deleting a hierarchy parent can also delete its children and deeper descendants. The Admin confirmation currently describes only the selected document, or the selected-document count for bulk deletion.

For example, selecting one parent with 12 descendants should warn that 13 documents will be permanently deleted. Showing only the parent or a count of 1 hides the full effect.

Cascade deletion is useful; its complete impact should be visible before confirmation.

Expected behavior

Show the total number of unique documents affected, including descendants at every depth:

Permanently delete 13 pages? This includes 1 selected page and 12 descendants.

This should:

  • Cover single-document and bulk deletion from collection and hierarchy views.
  • Count each document once when both a parent and its descendant are selected.
  • Distinguish permanent deletion from moving documents to Trash.
  • Distinguish deleted documents from related documents whose hierarchy reference is only cleared.
  • Calculate the count server-side using the same selection and cascade rules as deletion.
Suggested reproduction

Use a collection with hierarchy: { parentFieldName: 'parent' }, a required text title field, and trash: false.

  1. Create Parent → Child → Grandchild.
  2. Open Parent and choose Delete. Inspect the confirmation without confirming.
  3. Repeat by selecting only Parent in the hierarchy list and choosing Delete.
  4. The confirmation should explain that 3 documents, including 2 descendants, will be deleted.
Source evidence

Inspected 4.0.0-beta.3; the same selection-count and cascade logic remains on main as of October 20, 2026.

This report is based on source inspection. These steps have not yet been run in a local beta application.

Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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