When our analysts delete a CI, they do not remove the link between the CI and it’s parent/child object (there’s no obvious reason that they would need to do this). Because of this, the API treats these links as Active and includes them in query responses. We tested this and the results were as described.

It appears that Core includes some intelligence/logic code which tests whether the child CI is active or deleted and if it’s deleted, then Core does not show that link in the list of linked items.

Steps to reproduce:

Delete the CI from the CMDB

Check in API and it still shows as active link

But if you unlink it from the linked CI and then delete the CI, the link shows as “D” in the API.