Delete Tombstone

A delete tombstone is a marker that a key was deleted. In a version-guarded destination, it can retain the deletion’s source version after the business row is removed. Without that evidence, an older replay may look like a new insertion and resurrect the row.

If order A was deleted at source version 20, reject an update from version 19. A genuinely later creation needs its own identity and ordering policy. Retain the marker for the supported replay horizon and keep it consistent with data restoration; do not keep unnecessary personal payloads merely to remember a deletion.

Kafka uses tombstone more specifically for a keyed record with a null value, used by log compaction. A Debezium delete change event and its following tombstone have different payloads and purposes. That broker marker is not automatically a durable per-key version guard in your sink; implement the needed destination policy.

Reference: Debezium delete and tombstone events.