Guide

Delete a Claude project

Automation
Anthropic is in Preview. It is available when your Subscription includes the Anthropic service.

This automation action permanently deletes a Claude project from your Claude Enterprise organization. The project’s custom instructions and knowledge documents are deleted with it.

Warning: Anthropic deletes the project immediately. There is no recycle bin and no recovery window.

Before you start

You will need:

  • An Anthropic Compliance Access Key with the delete:compliance_user_data scope, entered on the “Automations/Actions” tab of “Manage consent”. See Anthropic consent. Without it, the action fails with the message “The Compliance Access Key of the Claude Enterprise organization is not configured in the Automations/Actions consent area for this environment.”
  • A project with no chats attached. Anthropic does not delete a project while chats are still attached to it, so detach or delete those chats in Claude first.
Rencore Governance cannot test the delete scope without deleting content. The first run of the action is also the first check of the key, so start with a single project you know is safe to remove.

Action settings

Once you select the “Delete Claude Project” action, you will need to complete the following:

  • Project: The Claude project to delete, prefilled from the inventory Claude Projects object.

Automation templates

Two templates are available in the Automation template library. Both are run manually.

TemplateWhat it does
Delete Claude ProjectSends the project creator an email that the project is scheduled for deletion, then deletes the project. Use it when no further approval is needed.
Delete Claude Project (with Approval)Sends an approval request titled “Approve deletion of “project name"" to the project creator. If it is approved, the creator is emailed and the project is deleted. If it is rejected, the creator is emailed and nothing changes.

To create an automation from either template, see Create an Automation from a Template.

The policies "Claude project is empty" and "Claude project not updated in 90 days" recommend the "Delete Claude Project (with Approval)" template for the projects they find.

What you see afterward

When the project is deleted, the run history shows “Claude project is successfully deleted” and the project is removed from the Claude Projects Inventory.

If the run fails, the run history shows “Claude project could not be deleted” with the reason from Anthropic. The most common reasons are:

  • Chats are still attached to the project.
  • Anthropic did not find the project. It may already have been deleted in Claude, and the Inventory updates on the next scan.
  • The automation key does not have the delete:compliance_user_data scope, or it was revoked.

Last updated: 9/25/2026