Delete classes/trigger from Prod via VSCode

Question

I need to delete classes and a trigger from prod via VSCode. I have retrieved the according classes/trigger via package.xml into VSCode. There is the command "SFDX: Delete This from Project and Org", which I can only test with the classes/trigger from Prod and into Prod. Does anyone have experience with this functionality? Thanks!

Answer 1

The UI option currently does not support deletion of metadata from production (e.g. see this question) What you need to do is a normal metadata API deployment instead. Create a new folder in your project, then create two new files in this folder, package.xml and destructiveChanges.xml.

package.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
  <version>48.0</version>
</Package>

destructiveChanges.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
  <types>
    <members>ClassToDelete</members>
    <name>ApexClass</name>
  </types>
  <version>48.0</version>
</Package>

After saving these two files, you then need to run a mdapi deployment:

sfdx force:mdapi:deploy -d folderName -l RunLocalTests -s -w -1

Once complete, assuming no errors, the specified metadata will be deleted.