Caching

TCA_API supports tag-based HTTP response caching for list and show operations. When enabled, responses are stored in a TYPO3 cache and served from there on subsequent identical requests — bypassing the database query and serialization entirely.

Configuration

Add a cache section to any resource definition:

return [
    'general' => [
        'table'        => 'tx_myext_domain_model_article',
        'resourceName' => 'articles',
        'resourceType' => 'Article',
        'operations'   => ['list', 'show'],
    ],
    'cache' => [
        'enabled'            => true,
        'lifetime'           => 3600,          // seconds; default: 86400
        'parametersToIgnore' => ['preview'],   // bypass cache when ?preview=… present
    ],
];

Key	Required	Default	Description
`enabled`	No	`false`	Enable caching for this resource.
`lifetime`	No	`86400`	Cache TTL in seconds.
`parametersToIgnore`	No	`[]`	Query parameters that bypass the cache entirely when present in the request (top-level or nested under `filters[…]`). Useful for preview or debug parameters.

Cache flow

For every GET request to a cached resource the dispatcher:

Builds a cache key from the operation, resource name, UID, and sorted query parameters.
Checks the tca_api TYPO3 cache.
HIT — returns the stored response body with X-TCA-API-Cache: HIT header.
MISS — runs the handler, serializes records (tagging each one as {table}_{uid}), stores the response, and returns it with X-TCA-API-Cache: MISS and X-Cache-Tags headers.

Response headers

Header	Value
`X-TCA-API-Cache`	`HIT` or `MISS`
`X-Cache-Tags`	Space-separated list of tags for the records in this response, e.g. `tx_myext_domain_model_article_1 tx_myext_domain_model_article_2`

Cache invalidation

Cache entries are invalidated automatically via a TYPO3 DataHandler hook (clearCachePostProc) whenever a record is created, updated, or deleted through the TYPO3 backend. All cached responses tagged with the affected table name are flushed.

Note

API write operations (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) do not trigger cache invalidation. Cached responses for a table remain valid until the next backend (DataHandler) operation touches the same table.

Cache backend

The extension registers the tca_api cache with an empty configuration, which defaults to TYPO3's Typo3DatabaseBackend (tables cf_tca_api / cf_tca_api_tags). For production use, configure a faster backend in config/system/settings.php (or LocalConfiguration.php):

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['caching']['cacheConfigurations']['tca_api'] = [
    'backend'  => \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Cache\Backend\FileBackend::class,
    'frontend' => \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Cache\Frontend\VariableFrontend::class,
    'options'  => ['defaultLifetime' => 86400],
];

A Redis or Memcached backend can further reduce response times for high-traffic deployments.