---
title: stack es delete cli command
description: Delete a document. Behaviour flags: --dry-run — validate all inputs and exit without performing any action 
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/4118/reference/elastic-cli/cli/stack/es/delete
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Preview
  - Elastic Stack: Preview
---

# stack es delete cli command
<cli-modifiers>
</cli-modifiers>

```bash
elastic stack es delete --id <id> --index <index> [options]
```

Delete a document.
**Behaviour flags:**
`--dry-run` — validate all inputs and exit without performing any action

## Options

<definitions>
  <definition term="--id string required">
    A unique identifier for the document.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--index string required">
    The name of the target index.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--if-primary-term number">
    Only perform the operation if the document has this primary term.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--if-seq-no number">
    Only perform the operation if the document has this sequence number.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--refresh enum">
    If `true`, Elasticsearch refreshes the affected shards to make this operation visible to search.
    If `wait_for`, it waits for a refresh to make this operation visible to search.
    If `false`, it does nothing with refreshes.
    **Values:** true, false, wait_for
  </definition>
  <definition term="--routing string">
    A custom value used to route operations to a specific shard.
    Not allowed when `index.slice.enabled` is `true` for the target index; use `_slice` instead.
    **Repeatable:** pass `--routing` multiple times to supply more than one value
  </definition>
  <definition term="--timeout string">
    The period to wait for active shards. This parameter is useful for situations where the primary shard assigned to perform the delete operation might not be available when the delete operation runs.
    Some reasons for this might be that the primary shard is currently recovering from a store or undergoing relocation.
    By default, the delete operation will wait on the primary shard to become available for up to 1 minute before failing and responding with an error.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--version number">
    An explicit version number for concurrency control.
    It must match the current version of the document for the request to succeed.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--version-type enum">
    The version type.
    **Values:** internal, external, external_gte
  </definition>
  <definition term="--wait-for-active-shards string">
    The minimum number of shard copies that must be active before proceeding with the operation.
    You can set it to `all` or any positive integer up to the total number of shards in the index (`number_of_replicas+1`).
    The default value of `1` means it waits for each primary shard to be active.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--error-trace">
    When set to `true` Elasticsearch will include the full stack trace of errors
    when they occur.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--filter-path string">
    Comma-separated list of filters in dot notation which reduce the response
    returned by Elasticsearch.
    **Repeatable:** pass `--filter-path` multiple times to supply more than one value
  </definition>
  <definition term="--human">
    When set to `true` will return statistics in a format suitable for humans.
    For example `"exists_time": "1h"` for humans and
    `"exists_time_in_millis": 3600000` for computers. When disabled the human
    readable values will be omitted. This makes sense for responses being consumed
    only by machines.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--pretty">
    If set to `true` the returned JSON will be "pretty-formatted". Only use
    this option for debugging only.
  </definition>
  <definition term="--input-file string">
    path to a JSON file to use as command input
  </definition>
  <definition term="--dry-run">
    validate all inputs and exit without performing any action (preview changes without applying them)
  </definition>
  <definition term="--yes">
    confirm destructive action without prompting
  </definition>
</definitions>


## Global Options

<definitions>
  <definition term="--json">
    output as JSON
  </definition>
</definitions>