Caching Strategies Agent Skill
CDN, Redis, in-memory cache, cache invalidation, and distributed caching patterns
Install
one command, takes just this skill from the repositorynpx skills add https://github.com/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills --skill caching-strategiesThe instruction itself
9 sections, as written by the authorCaching Strategies
Cache effectively to improve performance and reduce load.
Cache Layers
| Layer | Latency | Storage | Examples |
|-------|---------|---------|----------|
| Browser | Local | Small | localStorage, HTTP cache |
| CDN | Regional | Large | CloudFront, CloudFlare, Fastly |
| Application | In-process | Small | L1 cache (heap) |
| Distributed | Network | Large | Redis, Memcached |
| Database | Same host | Very large | Buffer pool, query cache |
Caching Patterns
Cache-Aside (Lazy Loading)
1. Check cache → miss
2. Query database
3. Store in cache
4. Return
Best for: Read-heavy, general purpose.
Write-Through
1. Write to cache
2. Cache writes to DB (sync)
3. Return
Best for: Consistency critical, write-heavy.
Write-Behind
1. Write to cache
2. Return immediately
3. Cache writes to DB (async)
Best for: High throughput writes, eventual consistency OK.
Refresh-Ahead
- Cache proactively refreshes before expiry
- Reduces latency spikes on cache miss
- Requires predictive logic or scheduled refresh
Cache Invalidation
Two hard things: naming, cache invalidation, off-by-one errors.
| Strategy | How | Risk |
|----------|-----|------|
| TTL | Expire after X seconds | Stale data during TTL |
| Event-based | Invalidate on data change | Missed events |
| Version keys | user_42_v3 | Unused old keys accumulate |
| Write-through | Update cache on write | Write amplification |
Redis Patterns
- Use
EXPIREon every SET - Use
SCANnotKEYSin production - Distributing: Redis Cluster for sharding
- Backup: RDB (snapshot) + AOF (append-only log)
- Monitor: hit rate, memory, evictions, latency
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How to use it
Take cosmicstack-labs/caching-strategies from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.