Not able to delete Agents

hi FrederickDierickx​  this is a known issue / limitation many folks are running into with the new Azure AI Foundry UI.

What’s happening

• Agent deletion via API returning success but not actually removing the agent usually means:
• The delete request is accepted, but the backend cleanup hasn’t completed (or fails silently).
• The Foundry UI is showing a cached or soft-deleted agent.
• The agent is still referenced by another resource (thread, run history, deployment, or connection), which prevents full deletion.

Right now, agent deletion behaves more like a logical delete than an immediate hard delete.

you can try below work arounds

1. Refresh / wait
• In several cases, agents disappear after a few minutes to a few hours.
• Try a hard refresh or log out/in of Foundry.
2. Check dependencies
• Make sure the agent:
• Is not linked to any active threads or runs
• Is not published to Copilot / Teams
• Is not referenced by another agent as a connected agent
• If it is, remove those references first.
3. Rename + disable as a workaround
• Since hard delete can fail, many teams are:
• Renaming agents to something like DEPRECATED_DO_NOT_USE
• Removing permissions / access
• Treating them as archived until deletion works reliably
4. Use a different project
• For now, some customers spin up a new Foundry project when experimenting heavily, because cleanup isn’t fully reliable yet.

I also would recommend:

• Open a support ticket if this is blocking:
• Azure Portal → Help + Support → New support request
• Service: Azure AI Foundry / Azure AI Services
• Include:
• Agent ID
• Project ID
• Confirmation that API delete returns success
• Screenshots showing agent still present

Also worth posting this in Azure AI Foundry / Agents feedback — Microsoft is actively adjusting lifecycle management based on community reports like this.