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, sorted query parameters, and the resolved language id (see Languages). Different locales never share a cache entry.
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 from two sources, so cached responses stay in sync no matter how a record changes:

TYPO3 backend edits — a DataHandler hook (clearCachePostProc) flushes all cached responses tagged with the affected table name whenever a record is created, updated, or deleted through the backend. Clear-cache commands with explicit tags (TCEMAIN.clearCacheCmd = cacheTag:…) flush those tags too.
API write operations (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) — each write dispatches an AfterWriteEvent and WriteCacheInvalidationListener flushes the affected tags: create flushes the table tag ({table}); update and delete flush both the table tag ({table}) and the record tag ({table}_{uid}). Writing a record via the API and reading it back immediately returns the fresh state.

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.