[jinoo7099]

Description

airflow db clean --skip-archive is expected to delete matching rows directly from the source metadata table without creating archive tables.

Previously, the cleanup path still followed the archive-first flow even when --skip-archive was enabled: it created an _airflow_deleted__... archive table, copied rows into it, deleted matching rows from the source table, and then dropped the archive table.

This change splits the skip-archive path so it deletes matching rows directly from the source table while preserving the existing cleanup filters, batching behavior, and keep-last behavior.

• closes: skip_archive should actually skip archive in db clean command #42003

Changes

• Add a direct delete path for skip_archive=True.
• Keep the existing archive-table flow unchanged for skip_archive=False.
• Avoid creating, inserting into, or dropping _airflow_deleted__... tables when skip-archive is enabled.
• Add regression coverage to verify skip-archive cleanup does not emit archive-table SQL.
• Add coverage for both single-delete and batched cleanup paths.

Tests

• uv run --frozen --project airflow-core pytest airflow-core/tests/unit/utils/test_db_cleanup.py -xvs --with-db-init
• prek run --from-ref main --stage pre-commit

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Was generative AI tooling used to co-author this PR?

• Yes codex(gpt 5.5)

[potiuk]

@jinoo7099 — I've removed the ready for maintainer review label because the next step here is yours: this branch now has merge conflicts with main. It'll go back into the maintainer queue automatically once you rebase onto the latest main and push — no need to re-add the label by hand. There's no rush.

_{Automated triage note drafted by an AI-assisted tool — may get things wrong; a real Apache Airflow maintainer takes the next look once it's green. (why automated)}

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Drafted-by: Claude Code (Opus 4.8); reviewed by @potiuk before posting

[github-actions]

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