Caching Glossary

Browse 50 caching terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

50 Caching Terms

AI Cache
A cache layer used to store and reuse AI-related outputs or intermediate results such as model responses, embeddings, retrieval results, or prompt expansions....
Application Cache
A cache used by an application to store frequently accessed data, computed results, or rendered output so repeated work can be avoided. Application caches...
Asset Fingerprint
A content-derived identifier, often a hash embedded in a filename, used to uniquely version static assets like JavaScript bundles or stylesheets. Asset...
Browser Cache
The local storage in a browser used to keep copies of previously fetched assets so future page loads can avoid refetching unchanged resources. Browser cache...
Cache Busting
A technique for forcing clients or intermediaries to fetch a fresh resource instead of reusing a cached one, usually by changing the asset URL through version...
Cache Control
The policies and directives that determine whether and how a response may be cached, revalidated, or shared by browsers, CDNs, or proxies. In HTTP, cache...
Cache Eviction
The removal of entries from a cache when space is needed or when policies such as LRU, LFU, TTL, or invalidation rules decide the data should no longer be...
Cache Invalidation
The process of removing or updating stale cached data when the underlying data changes. Phil Karlton's famous quote: 'There are only two hard things in...
Cache Key
The identifier used to look up a value in a cache, often derived from request parameters, user context, resource IDs, locale, or other inputs that affect the...
Cache Layer
A distinct caching tier inserted between a data source and its consumers to reduce latency, offload repeated work, or improve throughput. Cache layers may sit...
Cache Management
The operational handling of cache population, invalidation, sizing, warm-up, eviction, observability, and failure behavior. Good cache management matters...
CacheMoney
A playful pun used by engineers to celebrate the performance or cost benefits of caching. It is less a formal term than a piece of nerd humor that appears in...
Cache Proxy
A proxy that stores reusable responses and serves future matching requests from cache instead of always forwarding them upstream. Cache proxies are common in...
Cache Region
A scoped portion of a caching system, often associated with a namespace, logical grouping, or geographic deployment area. Cache regions can be used to separate...
Cache Server
A dedicated server or service that stores cached data for reuse by applications or users, such as Redis, Memcached, or an HTTP caching appliance. Cache servers...
Cache Size
The amount of memory or storage allocated to a cache for holding entries. Cache size is a key tuning parameter because too little space causes churn and low...
Cache Slam
A sudden wave of load or latency caused by many requests hitting a cache at once, often during warm-up, expiration, or invalidation events. In ops slang, cache...
Cache Stampede
A failure mode where a popular cache entry expires, causing many concurrent requests to simultaneously hit the database to regenerate it. The sudden load spike...
Cache Strategy
The overall approach used to decide what should be cached, where it should be cached, how long it should live, and how it should be invalidated. Cache strategy...
Cache TTL
The time-to-live value that determines how long a cache entry remains valid before it expires or must be refreshed. TTL tuning is a tradeoff between freshness...
Caching Layer
A layer in the architecture dedicated to storing and serving cached data between producers and consumers. A caching layer often sits between the application...
Caching Pattern
A recurring approach to caching such as cache-aside, write-through, write-behind, read-through, or refresh-ahead. Different caching patterns make different...
Caching Strategy
The selected combination of cache locations, invalidation rules, TTLs, warming behavior, and fallbacks used to meet performance and consistency goals. Caching...
CDN
A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is a geographically distributed system of proxy servers and data centers that cache and deliver content from locations...
Client Cache
Cached data stored on the client side, such as in memory, browser storage, or a mobile app's local database, to avoid refetching the same information...
Code Cache
A cache used to store compiled, parsed, or otherwise optimized code representations so repeated execution can skip expensive preparation work. Code caches...
Content Hash
A hash value derived from the actual bytes or text of some content, used to detect changes, ensure integrity, or produce stable cache-busting names. Content...
Disk Cache
A Disk Cache is a development concept used to shape how software is built, executed, or maintained in real systems. Developers rely on it to make code easier...
DragonflyDB
An in-memory datastore positioned as a high-performance alternative for cache and key-value workloads.
ETag
An HTTP response header containing a unique identifier (hash or version) for a specific version of a resource. Clients can send If-None-Match with the ETag on...
Inline Cache
An Inline Cache is a development concept used to shape how software is built, executed, or maintained in real systems. Developers rely on it to make code...
Key-Value Store
A data store that associates each unique key with a value and retrieves data primarily by direct key lookup rather than relational joins or rich querying....
KV Store
A key-value store — a database or storage system that maps unique keys to arbitrary values, optimized for fast lookups, writes, and deletes by key. Examples...
LLM Cache
A cache used to store and reuse large language model outputs or related intermediate results so repeated requests do not trigger full generation again. LLM...
Local Cache
An in-process cache that stores frequently accessed data in the application's own memory space, avoiding network round-trips to an external cache like Redis....
LRU
Least Recently Used — a cache eviction policy that discards the entry that has gone the longest without being accessed. Typically implemented with a hash map...
LRU Cache
Least Recently Used cache — a fixed-size cache that evicts the least recently accessed item when full. Implemented with a hash map (O(1) lookup) and a...
Memcached
A high-performance, distributed, in-memory key-value store designed for caching database query results, session data, and API responses. It uses a simple...
Memoization
An optimization technique that caches the results of expensive function calls and returns the cached result when the same inputs occur again. Only works for...
Nuke the Cache
To completely clear cached data because it has become stale, corrupted, or otherwise harmful. It is both a real troubleshooting step and a running joke about...
Prefetch
To speculatively load data, assets, or DNS resolutions before they are explicitly needed, anticipating that the user or program will request them soon. In...
Prompt Cache
A cache that stores prompt-related computations or repeated prompt results so equivalent requests can be handled more cheaply and quickly. Prompt caches are...
Query Cache
A mechanism that stores the result set of a previously executed query keyed by the query text (and sometimes its parameters), returning cached results on...
Stale-While-Revalidate
A caching strategy (HTTP header and React Query/SWR pattern) that immediately returns stale cached data while simultaneously fetching a fresh version in the...
Time to Live Slang
Informal use of time to live for how long something should persist before expiring or being refreshed. In engineering slang, TTL gets mentioned far beyond...
TTL
Time to Live — a counter or timestamp that limits the lifespan of data. In DNS, TTL specifies how long a resolver should cache a record (in seconds). In IP...
Turborepo
A high-performance build system for JavaScript and TypeScript monorepos (now maintained by Vercel) that analyzes the dependency graph between packages, runs...
Weak Reference
A reference to an object that does not prevent it from being garbage collected. Used to build caches, observer patterns, and break reference cycles without...
Write Back
A caching strategy where writes update only the cache initially, marking the cache line as dirty, and the modified data is flushed to the backing store (main...
Write Through
A caching strategy in which every write operation updates both the cache and the underlying backing store synchronously, guaranteeing that the cache and the...

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