[max0563]

Uhh, no, the answer is not to avoid cascading deletes. The answer is to not develop directly on a production database and to have even the most basic of backup strategies in place. It is not hard.

Also, “on delete restrict” isn’t a bad policy either for some keys. Make deleting data difficult.

[throwdbaaway]

> Here's the technical takeaway: Never use CASCADE deletes on critical foreign keys. Set them to NULL or use soft deletes instead. It's fine for UPDATE operations, but it's too dangerous for DELETE ones. The convenience of automatic cleanup isn't worth the existential risk of chain reactions.

I actually agreed 100% with this learning, especially the last sentence. The younger me would write a long email to push for ON DELETE CASCADE everywhere. The older me doesn't even want to touch terraform, where an innocent looking update can end up destroying everything. I will rather live with some orphaned records and some infra drifts.

And still I got burnt few months ago, when I inadvertently triggered some internal ON DELETE CASCADE logic of Consul ACL.

(I do agree with your other points)