Tutorial: Building with CleaveDB

Removing Relationships (SEVER & UNLINK)

When an association between two entities ends—such as unfriending a user, revoking a member's role, or removing an external URL reference—CleaveDB provides dedicated commands for each relationship engine: SEVER for graph bonds in _bonds, and UNLINK for document and URL links in _links.

1. SEVER — Removing Graph Bonds

Use SEVER to remove graph edges between documents. You can target a single named label or destroy all bonds between the pair:

-- Remove a specific labeled edge
SEVER "users:jane" FROM "users:juan" AS "friend"

-- Remove ALL bonds between Jane and Juan regardless of label
SEVER "users:jane" FROM "users:juan"

When a specific label is severed, any other bonds between the two documents (such as "co_worker") remain completely intact.

2. UNLINK — Removing Document & URL Links

Use UNLINK to detach structural document pointers or external web URLs from _links:

-- Remove a document link
UNLINK "users:jane" FROM "users:juan"

-- Remove a specific labelled link
UNLINK "users:jane" FROM "users:juan" AS "mentor"

-- Remove an external web URL reference
UNLINK "users:jane" FROM "https://github.com/jane"

UNLINK specifically targets records in the _links catalog without disturbing semantic graph edges in _bonds.

3. Integrity Healing (HEAL)

If documents are permanently deleted with INCINERATE or external references break, use HEAL to automatically clean up orphaned edges: