Cache Control

Definitions

1. 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 control is typically expressed through headers that balance freshness, bandwidth savings, and correctness.

   In plain English: The rules that tell caches whether and how to store and reuse a response.

   Example: "The API set strict cache control on user-specific responses but allowed long-lived public caching for hashed static assets."

Related Terms

• CDN
• Stale-While-Revalidate
• ETag
• JSON API
• Local Cache
• Network Protocol
• Request Handler
• Cache Proxy
• Cache TTL
• Content Encoding