Data Retention
Coder Agents automatically cleans up old conversation data to manage database growth. Archived conversations and their associated files are periodically purged based on a configurable retention period.
How it works
A background process runs approximately every 10 minutes to remove expired conversation data. Only archived conversations are eligible for deletion — active (non-archived) conversations are never purged.
When an archived conversation exceeds the retention period, it is deleted along with its messages, diff statuses, and queued messages via cascade. Orphaned files (not referenced by any active or recently-archived conversation) are also deleted. Both operations run in batches of 1,000 rows per cycle.
Configuration
Navigate to the Agents page, open Settings, and select the Behavior tab to configure the conversation retention period. The default is 30 days. Use the toggle to disable retention entirely.
The retention period is stored as the agents_chat_retention_days key in the
site_configs table and can also be managed via the API at
/api/experimental/chats/config/retention-days.
What gets deleted
| Data | Condition | Cascade |
|---|---|---|
| Archived conversations | Archived longer than retention period | Messages, diff statuses, queued messages deleted via CASCADE. |
| Conversation files | Older than retention period AND not referenced by any active or recently-archived conversation | — |
Unarchive safety
If a user unarchives a conversation whose files were purged, stale file references are automatically cleaned up by FK cascades. The conversation remains usable but previously attached files are no longer available.