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docs: update account deletion and linking behavior #477

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57 changes: 57 additions & 0 deletions content/en/cloud/identity/users/_index.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -16,6 +16,8 @@ Your user account can own resources such as workspaces, designs, connections, cr

Each user account is subscribed to a plan: Free, Team, or Enterprise. All user accounts can own an unlimited number of public and private workspaces, with an unlimited number of collaborators on those workspaces. If you use Layer5 Free, private workspaces owned by your user account have a limited feature set. You can upgrade to Layer5 Enterprise to get a full feature set for private workspaces.

Note: Free plan users are limited to a single organization — their initial default organization, typically named "My Organization".

{{< alert type="info" >}}
For more information, see [Layer5 subscription plans](https://layer5.io/pricing).
{{< /alert >}}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -44,3 +46,58 @@ You can link your Layer5 account to social sign-in providers after sign up, as w
2. When signing in later, click to sign in with a social sign-in provider (e.g. GitHub or Google) that contains the same email address `alice@example.com`.
3. Since your same email address is aleady associated to an your existing account, registered already, you will be prompted to enter the password of your existing account.
4. After entering the correct password, your social sign-in is linked to your existing account. Now, you can sign in with either password or social sign-in provider.

**Rules and Limitations**

1. You cannot link the same social sign-in to multiple Layer5 accounts
2. If you delete your account, any linked OAuth providers (e.g., GitHub) are automatically unlinked
3. Re-registering with the same email **does not** automatically re-link the OAuth provider
4. You may unlink a social sign-in provider at any time

## Account Deletion

When a user deletes their account, the following behaviors apply:

**1. Personal Resources**

- Personal content (e.g., unpublished designs) is soft-deleted internally.
- There is currently **no recovery option** available to users.

**2. Published Content**

- Published content (e.g., items in the [Catalog](https://cloud.layer5.io/catalog)) remains accessible to the public
- This ensures that published work continues to benefit the community, even after the account is deleted.

**3. Organization Ownership**

- If you are the [only Org Admin or Owner](https://docs.layer5.io/cloud/security/roles/), the organization may become **unmanageable** after you delete your account.
- It is strongly recommended to assign multiple admins before deletion.

**4. Organization Deletion**

- Organizations cannot be deleted just by leaving or deleting accounts.
- Only Org Owners can delete an organization, and it must be done as an explicit, manual action.
- Org Admins do not have this permission.

**5. Re-registering with the Same Email**

- Signing up again with the same email address creates a **new, separate account**.
- The new account:
- Will not automatically regain access to resources linked to the deleted account.
- May, in rare cases, display inconsistent profile data (e.g., old display name in design attribution).
- This is a known issue and will be addressed through UUID-based identity linking in the future.

**6. Deployed Designs**

- Deployed designs are **not automatically removed** when a user deletes their account.
- This ensures that deployments remain stable unless explicitly taken down.

{{< alert type="info" >}}
While account deletion is permanent for end-users, future versions of Layer5 Cloud may introduce:

- A pre-deletion flow for reviewing and exporting data
- The ability to transfer ownership of resources (e.g., workspaces, teams, organizations)
- Support for recovering accounts or restoring deleted data

{{< /alert >}}