Types

Cell tombstone (single column). Range tombstone (WHERE clause DELETE). Partition tombstone (DELETE FROM t WHERE pk = ?). Row tombstone (DELETE all columns).

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gc_grace_seconds

Default 10 days. Tombstones only purged after this. Ensures deletes replicated everywhere. Reduce → risk of zombie data if node offline.

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tombstone_warn_threshold + tombstone_failure_threshold

1000 warn, 100k fail. Query returning > N tombstones → warn/fail. Cassandra self-defense.