Hi @paulrostorp, you are right. The issue is because you have removed the alpha leader.
First of all, removeNode endpoint is not specifically for the downscaling dgraph cluster. It’s meant to replace the faulty node. But with few tricks, it can be used to downscale the cluster. But we have to ensure that cluster doesn’t go into an unstable state because of loss of consensus.
So when you set up 2N+1 number of nodes in a RAFT setup, the cluster can handle N failures. So removing the first node (either Leader or follower) doesn’t have any adverse effect on cluster. But removing the second node which is the leader leads to faulty quorum and thus an unstable cluster.