Deco Edge Caching

Complete caching infrastructure for Deco storefronts on Cloudflare Workers, provided by @decocms/start/sdk.

Architecture Overview

Three caching layers work together:

Layer	What	Where	TTL Control
Edge cache	Full HTML responses	Cloudflare Cache API + CDN	cacheHeaders(profile) via worker-entry
Loader cache	VTEX/Shopify API data	In-memory per-isolate (V8)	createCachedLoader() in setup.ts
Client cache	Route data after navigation	TanStack Router memory	routeCacheDefaults(profile) on routes

The worker-entry is the authority for edge caching. Routes declare intent via headers() and staleTime, but the worker-entry overrides Cache-Control based on URL-detected profiles.

Cache Profiles

Profile	Browser max-age	Edge s-maxage	SWR	Client staleTime
static	1 hour	1 day	1 day	5 min
product	60s	5 min	1 hour	1 min
listing	30s	2 min	10 min	1 min
search	0	60s	5 min	30s
cart	private	—	—	0
private	private	—	—	0
none	private	—	—	0

URL-to-Profile Detection (built-in)

URL Pattern	Detected Profile
/	static
*/p (ends with /p)	product
/s, /s/*, ?q=	search
/cart, /checkout, /account, /login	private
/api/*, /deco/*, /_server, /_build	none
Everything else	listing (conservative default)

Site Worker Entry (10 lines)

CRITICAL: wrangler.jsonc must point to this custom file, NOT to @tanstack/react-start/server-entry. TanStack Start's Cloudflare adapter completely ignores custom export default — it generates its own handler that calls createStartHandler directly. Without a separate worker-entry, none of the caching, admin routes, or purge logic will execute in production.

// wrangler.jsonc
{
  "main": "./src/worker-entry.ts"
  // NOT: "main": "@tanstack/react-start/server-entry"
}

// src/worker-entry.ts
import "./setup";
import handler, { createServerEntry } from "@tanstack/react-start/server-entry";
import { createDecoWorkerEntry } from "@decocms/start/sdk/workerEntry";

const serverEntry = createServerEntry({
  async fetch(request) {
    return await handler.fetch(request);
  },
});

export default createDecoWorkerEntry(serverEntry);

With Custom Overrides

export default createDecoWorkerEntry(serverEntry, {
  // Override profile for specific URLs
  detectProfile: (url) => {
    if (url.pathname.startsWith("/institucional")) return "static";
    return null; // fall through to built-in detection
  },
  // Disable mobile/desktop cache key splitting
  deviceSpecificKeys: false,
  // Custom purge token env var
  purgeTokenEnv: "MY_PURGE_TOKEN",
  // Add extra bypass paths
  extraBypassPaths: ["/preview/"],
});

Route Setup

import { createFileRoute } from "@tanstack/react-router";
import { cacheHeaders, routeCacheDefaults } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cacheHeaders";

export const Route = createFileRoute("/")({
  ...routeCacheDefaults("static"),
  headers: () => cacheHeaders("static"),
  loader: () => loadPage(),
  component: HomePage,
});

For the CMS catch-all route:

export const Route = createFileRoute("/$")({
  ...routeCacheDefaults("listing"),
  headers: () => cacheHeaders("listing"),
  loader: async ({ params }) => { /* ... */ },
  component: CmsPage,
});

The worker-entry overrides the route's Cache-Control with the correct profile for each URL (PDP gets product, search gets search, etc.), so the route's headers() serves as a fallback for client-side navigation responses via /_server.

Registering Custom Patterns

// In setup.ts or worker-entry.ts
import { registerCachePattern } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cacheHeaders";

registerCachePattern({
  test: (pathname) => pathname.startsWith("/blog"),
  profile: "static",
});

Custom patterns evaluate before built-in ones.

Factory Features

createDecoWorkerEntry provides:

1. Cache API integration — caches.default.match() / .put() for edge caching
2. Device-specific keys — mobile/desktop get separate cached HTML (__cf_device param)
3. Per-URL profiles — detectCacheProfile(url) selects the right Cache-Control
4. Immutable static assets — /_build/assets/*-{hash}.* get immutable, max-age=31536000
5. Private path protection — strips public Cache-Control from cart/checkout/account responses
6. Cache API TTL fix — stores with max-age={sMaxAge} since Cache API ignores s-maxage
7. Purge API — POST /_cache/purge with bearer token to invalidate paths
8. Diagnostic headers — X-Cache: HIT|MISS and X-Cache-Profile: {profile}

Debugging Cache

# Check profile and cache status
curl -s -D - -o /dev/null "https://site.com/category-slug" | grep -iE "cache-control|x-cache"

# Expected first hit:
# cache-control: public, max-age=30, s-maxage=120, stale-while-revalidate=600
# x-cache: MISS
# x-cache-profile: listing

# Expected second hit:
# cf-cache-status: HIT
# x-cache: HIT
# age: 3

# Purge cache
curl -X POST "https://site.com/_cache/purge" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PURGE_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"paths": ["/", "/vedacao-externa"]}'

Important: Use GET requests for testing (not curl -I which sends HEAD). The worker-entry only caches GET requests.

Loader Cache (Server-Side SWR)

In setup.ts, wrap commerce loaders with createCachedLoader:

import { createCachedLoader } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cachedLoader";

const cachedPLP = createCachedLoader("vtex/plp", vtexPLP, {
  policy: "stale-while-revalidate",
  maxAge: 60_000,
});

This is per-isolate in-memory cache (V8 Map). Resets on cold start. Includes request deduplication (single-flight) and LRU eviction at 500 entries.

Cache Versioning with BUILD_HASH

Deploy-time cache busting uses a BUILD_HASH environment variable (typically the git short SHA) passed to wrangler deploy. The worker-entry appends this to cache keys so deploying a new version automatically serves fresh content.

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
- name: Deploy to Cloudflare Workers
  run: npx wrangler deploy
  env:
    BUILD_HASH: ${{ github.sha }}

The worker-entry reads env.BUILD_HASH and injects it into cache keys. On new deploys, old cache entries simply expire naturally — no purge needed.

Site-Level Cache Pattern Registration

For sites with known institutional/static pages that would otherwise get the conservative 2-min "listing" TTL, register explicit patterns in setup.ts:

// setup.ts
import { registerCachePattern } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cacheHeaders";

// Institutional pages — content changes rarely, promote to 24h edge TTL
registerCachePattern({
  test: (p) =>
    p.startsWith("/institucional") ||
    p.startsWith("/central-de-atendimento") ||
    p.startsWith("/politica-de-") ||
    p.startsWith("/termos-") ||
    p === "/fale-conosco" ||
    p === "/trabalhe-conosco" ||
    p === "/cadastro" ||
    p === "/televendas",
  profile: "static",
});

// Promotional/collection pages — already listing-like, but explicit is better
registerCachePattern({
  test: (p) =>
    p.startsWith("/ofertas") ||
    p.startsWith("/b/") ||
    p.startsWith("/festival-"),
  profile: "listing",
});

Custom patterns are evaluated before built-in ones. This is the recommended way to tune caching per-site without modifying the framework.

Client-Side Route Caching (routeCacheDefaults)

Without routeCacheDefaults, every SPA navigation triggers a fresh server request even if the data was just loaded. This is the most common cause of "slow navigation" reports.

The catch-all route $.tsx MUST include routeCacheDefaults:

export const Route = createFileRoute("/$")({
  ...routeCacheDefaults("listing"),   // <-- client-side cache: 1min stale, 5min gc
  loaderDeps: routeConfig.loaderDeps,
  loader: routeConfig.loader,
  headers: ({ loaderData }) => {
    return cacheHeaders(loaderData?.cacheProfile ?? "listing");
  },
  component: CmsPage,
});

The homepage should use cmsHomeRouteConfig which already includes routeCacheDefaults("static"):

export const Route = createFileRoute("/")({
  ...cmsHomeRouteConfig({ defaultTitle: "My Store" }),
  component: HomePage,
});

Cache Analysis & Debugging with Stats Lake

Deco sites emit CDN usage data to a ClickHouse stats-lake. This enables cache performance analysis:

-- Cache status breakdown for a site
SELECT
  JSONExtractString(extra, 'cacheStatus') AS cache_status,
  count() AS requests,
  round(count() * 100.0 / sum(count()) OVER (), 2) AS pct
FROM fact_usage_daily
WHERE site_id = <site_id>
  AND date >= today() - 7
GROUP BY cache_status
ORDER BY requests DESC;

Understanding "unknown" Cache Status

When the Cloudflare Worker uses caches.default.match()/put() to serve cached responses internally, the outer CDN reports cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC because the Worker is the origin. The stats-lake logs this as "unknown" or empty.

This means a high "unknown" percentage does NOT indicate a caching problem — it means the Worker's internal Cache API is handling the request before it reaches the origin CDN layer. This is expected and desirable behavior.

To verify actual cache performance:

1. Check X-Cache: HIT|MISS header (set by the worker-entry)
2. Check X-Cache-Profile header (shows which profile was detected)
3. Query stats-lake grouping by cacheStatus AND response status codes

Comparing Staging vs Production Cache

When migrating to TanStack Workers, compare cache metrics:

• Production (Deno/Fresh on Kubernetes) typically shows high HIT rates because traffic volume keeps caches warm
• Staging Workers may show lower HIT rates due to lower traffic, plus "unknown" status from internal Cache API
• The "unknown" requests on Workers are functionally equivalent to HITs — they're served from the Worker's Cache API without hitting the origin server function

Key Constraints

• Cache API ignores s-maxage — the factory uses max-age equal to sMaxAge when storing in Cache API
• In-memory loader cache is ephemeral — resets when Workers isolates recycle (~30s idle)
• Device keys add a query param — __cf_device=mobile|desktop is appended to cache keys, so purging must clear both
• Non-200 responses are never cached — only 200 OK goes into Cache API
• /_server paths always bypass cache — TanStack Start RPC requests are never edge-cached
• UTM parameters are stripped — utm_*, gclid, fbclid are removed from cache keys to improve hit rates
• Segment hashing — user segments (from matchers/flags) are hashed into the cache key so different audiences get different cached responses

Package Exports

// Headers and profiles
import { cacheHeaders, routeCacheDefaults, detectCacheProfile } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cacheHeaders";
import { getCacheProfileConfig, registerCachePattern } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cacheHeaders";

// Worker entry factory
import { createDecoWorkerEntry } from "@decocms/start/sdk/workerEntry";

// Loader cache
import { createCachedLoader, clearLoaderCache } from "@decocms/start/sdk/cachedLoader";