Caching Dependencies

Caching is one of the most effective ways to make jobs faster on CircleCI by reusing the data from expensive fetch operations from previous jobs.

• Caching Libraries
• Source Caching
• Writing to the Cache in Workflows
• Restoring Cache
• Basic Example of Dependency Caching
• Using Keys and Templates
• Limitations
• Caching Strategy Tradeoffs

After an initial job run, future instances of the job will run faster by not redoing work.

A good example is package dependency managers such as Yarn, Bundler, or Pip. With dependencies restored from a cache, commands like yarn install will only need to download new dependencies, if any, and not redownload everything on every build.

Example Caching Configuration

Caching keys are simple to configure. The following example updates a cache if it changes by using checksum of pom.xml with a cascading fallback:

    steps:
      - restore_cache:
         keys:
           - m2-{{ checksum "pom.xml" }}
           - m2- # used if checksum fails

Introduction

Automatic dependency caching is not available in CircleCI 2.0, so it is important to plan and implement your caching strategy to get the best performance. Manual configuration in 2.0 enables more advanced strategies and finer control.

This document describes the manual caching available, the costs and benefits of a chosen strategy, and tips for avoiding problems with caching. Note: The Docker images used for CircleCI 2.0 job runs are automatically cached on the server infrastructure where possible.

For information about enabling a premium feature to reuse the unchanged layers of your Docker image, see the Enabling Docker Layer Caching document.

Overview

A cache stores a hierarchy of files under a key. Use the cache to store data that makes your job faster, but in the case of a cache miss or zero cache restore the job will still run successfully, for example, by caching Npm, Gem, or Maven package directories.

Caching is a balance between reliability (not using an out-of-date or inappropriate cache) and getting maximum performance (using a full cache for every build).

In general it is safer to preserve reliability than to risk a corrupted build or to build using stale dependencies very quickly. So, the ideal is to balance performance gains while maintaining high reliability.

Caching Libraries

The dependencies that are most important to cache during a job are the libraries on which your project depends. For example, cache the libraries that are installed with pip in Python or npm for Node.js. The various language dependency managers, for example npm or pip, each have their own paths where dependencies are installed. See our Language guides and demo projects for the specifics for your stack: https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/demo-apps/.

Tools that are not explicitly required for your project are best stored on the Docker image. The Docker image(s) pre-built by CircleCI have tools preinstalled that are generic for building projects using the language the image is focused on. For example the circleci/ruby:2.4.1 image has useful tools like git, openssh-client, and gzip preinstalled.

Source Caching

As in CircleCI 1.0, it is possible and oftentimes beneficial to cache your git repository, thus saving time in your checkout step—especially for larger projects. Here is an example of source caching:

    steps:
      - restore_cache:
          keys:
            - source-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ .Revision }}
            - source-v1-{{ .Branch }}-
            - source-v1-
            
      - checkout
      
      - save_cache:
          key: source-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ .Revision }}
          paths:
            - ".git"

In this example, restore_cache looks for a cache hit from the current git revision, then for a hit from the current branch, and finally for any cache hit, regardless of branch or revision. When CircleCI encounters a list of keys, the cache will be restored from the first match. If there are multiple matches, the most recently generated cache will be used.

If your source code changes frequently, we recommend using fewer, more specific keys. This produces a more granular source cache that will update more often as the current branch and git revision change.

Even with the narrowest restore_cache option (source-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ .Revision }}), source caching can be greatly beneficial when, for example, running repeated builds against the same git revision (i.e., with API-triggered builds) or when using Workflows, where you might otherwise need to checkout the same repository once per Workflows job.

That said, it’s worth comparing build times with and without source caching; git clone is often faster than restore_cache.

NOTE: The built-in checkout command disables git’s automatic garbage collection. You might choose to manually run git gc in a run step prior to running save_cache to reduce the size of the saved cache.

Writing to the Cache in Workflows

Jobs in one workflow can share caches. Note that this makes it possibile to create race conditions in caching across different jobs in workflows.

Cache is immutable on write: once a cache is written for a particular key like node-cache-master, it cannot be written to again. Consider a workflow of 3 jobs, where Job3 depends on Job1 and Job2: {Job1, Job2} -> Job3. They all read and write to the same cache key.

In a run of the workflow, Job3 may use the cache written by Job1 or Job2. Since caches are immutable, this would be whichever job saved its cache first. This is usually undesireable because the results aren’t deterministic–part of the result depends on chance. You could make this workflow deterministic by changing the job dependencies: make Job1 and Job2 write to different caches and Job3 loads from only one, or ensure there can be only one ordering: Job1 -> Job2 ->Job3.

There are more complex cases, where jobs can save using a dynamic key like node-cache-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }} and restore using a partial key match like node-cache-. The possibility for a race condition still exists, but the details may change. For instance, the downstream job uses the cache from the upstream job to run last.

Another race condition is possible when sharing caches between jobs. Consider a workflow with no dependency links: Job1 and Job2. Job2 uses the cache saved from Job1. Job2 could sometimes successfully restore a cache, and sometimes report no cache is found, even when Job1 reports saving it. Job2 could also load a cache from a previous workflow. If this happens, this means Job2 tried to load the cache before Job1 saved it. This can be resolved by creating a workflow dependency: Job1 -> Job2. This would force Job2 to wait until Job1 has finished running.

Restoring Cache

CircleCI restores caches in the order of keys listed in the restore_cache step. Each cache key is namespaced to the project, and retrieval is prefix-matched. The cache will be restored from the first matching key. If there are multiple matches, the most recently generated cache will be used.

In the example below, two keys are provided:

    steps:
      - restore_cache:
          keys:
            # Find a cache corresponding to this specific package-lock.json checksum
            # when this file is changed, this key will fail
            - v1-npm-deps-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }}
            # Find the most recently generated cache used from any branch
            - v1-npm-deps-

Because the second key is less specific than the first, it is more likely that there will be differences between the current state and the most recently generated cache. When a dependency tool runs, it would discover outdated dependencies and update them. This is referred to as a partial cache restore.

Clearing Cache

If you need to get clean caches when your language or dependency management tool versions change, use a naming strategy similar to the previous example and then change the cache key names in your config.yml file and commit the change to clear the cache.

For example, you may want to clear the cache in the following scenarios by incrementing the cache key name:

• Dependency manager version change, for example, you change npm from 4 to 5
• Language version change, for example, you change ruby 2.3 to 2.4
• Dependencies are removed from your project

Basic Example of Dependency Caching

The extra control and power in CircleCI 2.0 manual dependency caching requires that you be explicit about what you cache and how you cache it. See the save cache section of the Configuring CircleCI document for additional examples.

To save a cache of a file or directory, add the save_cache step to a job in your .circleci/config.yml file:

    steps:
      - save_cache:
          key: my-cache
          paths:
            - my-file.txt
            - my-project/my-dependencies-directory

The path for directories is relative to the working_directory of your job. You can specify an absolute path if you choose.

Note: Unlike the special step persist_to_workspace, neither save_cache nor restore_cache support globbing for the paths key.

Using Keys and Templates

While choosing suitable templates for your cache key, keep in mind that cache saving is not a free operation, it will take some time to upload the cache to CircleCI storage. To avoid generating a new cache every build, have a key that generates a new cache only if something actually changes.

The first step is to decide when a cache will be saved or restored by using a key for which some value is an explicit aspect of your project. For example, when a build number increments, when a revision is incremented, or when the hash of a dependency manifest file changes.

Following are some examples of caching strategies for different goals:

• myapp-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }} - Cache will be regenerated every time something is changed in package-lock.json file, different branches of this project will generate the same cache key.
• myapp-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }} - Cache will be regenerated every time something is changed in package-lock.json file, different branches of this project will generate separate cache keys.
• myapp-{{ epoch }} - Every build will generate separate cache keys.

During step execution, the templates above will be replaced by runtime values and use the resultant string as the key. The following table describes the available cache key templates:

Note: When defining a unique identifier for the cache, be careful about overusing template keys that are highly specific such as {{ epoch }}. If you use less specific template keys such as {{ .Branch }} or {{ checksum "filename" }}, you’ll increase the odds of the cache being used. But, there are tradeoffs as described in the following section.

Full Example of Saving and Restoring Cache

The following example demonstrates how to use restore_cache and save_cache together with templates and keys in your .circleci/config.yml file.

    docker:
      - image: customimage/ruby:2.3-node-phantomjs-0.0.1
        environment:
          RAILS_ENV: test
          RACK_ENV: test
      - image: circleci/mysql:5.6

    steps:
      - checkout
      - run: cp config/{database_circleci,database}.yml

      # Run bundler
      # Load installed gems from cache if possible, bundle install then save cache
      # Multiple caches are used to increase the chance of a cache hit

      - restore_cache:
          keys:
            - gem-cache-v1-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Gemfile.lock" }}
            - gem-cache-v1-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}
            - gem-cache-v1

      - run: bundle install --path vendor/bundle

      - save_cache:
          key: gem-cache-v1-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Gemfile.lock" }}
          paths:
            - vendor/bundle

      - run: bundle exec rubocop
      - run: bundle exec rake db:create db:schema:load --trace
      - run: bundle exec rake factory_girl:lint

      # Precompile assets
      # Load assets from cache if possible, precompile assets then save cache
      # Multiple caches are used to increase the chance of a cache hit

      - restore_cache:
          keys:
            - asset-cache-v1-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ .Environment.CIRCLE_SHA1 }}
            - asset-cache-v1-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}
            - asset-cache-v1

      - run: bundle exec rake assets:precompile

      - save_cache:
          key: asset-cache-v1-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ .Environment.CIRCLE_SHA1 }}
          paths:
            - public/assets
            - tmp/cache/assets/sprockets

      - run: bundle exec rspec
      - run: bundle exec cucumber

Partial Dependency Caching Strategies

Some dependency managers do not properly handle installing on top of partially restored dependency trees.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        - gem-cache-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Gemfile.lock" }}
        - gem-cache-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}
        - gem-cache

In the above example, if a dependency tree is partially restored by the second or third cache keys, some dependency managers will incorrectly install on top of the outdated dependency tree.

Instead of a cascading fallback, a more stable option is a single version-prefixed cache key.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        - v1-gem-cache-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Gemfile.lock" }}

Since caches are immutable, this strategy allows you to regenerate all of your caches by incrementing the version. This is useful in the following scenarios:

• When you change the version of a dependency manager like npm.
• When you change the version of a language like Ruby.
• When you add or remove dependencies from your project.

The stability of partial dependency caching is dependent on your dependency manager. Below is a list of common dependency managers, recommended partial caching strategies, and associated justifications.

Bundler (Ruby)

Safe to Use Partial Cache Restoration? Yes (with caution).

Since Bundler uses system gems that are not explicitly specified, it is non-deterministic, and partial cache restoration can be unreliable.

To prevent this behavior, add a step that cleans Bundler before restoring dependencies from cache.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        # when lock file changes, use increasingly general patterns to restore cache
        - v1-gem-cache-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Gemfile.lock" }}
        - v1-gem-cache-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-
        - v1-gem-cache-{{ arch }}-
  - run: bundle install && bundle clean
  - save_cache:
      paths:
        - ~/.bundle
      key: v1-gem-cache-{{ arch }}-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Gemfile.lock" }}

Gradle (Java)

Safe to Use Partial Cache Restoration? Yes.

Gradle repositories are intended to be centralized, shared, and massive. Partial caches can be restored without impacting which libraries are actually added to classpaths of generated artifacts.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        # when lock file changes, use increasingly general patterns to restore cache
        - gradle-repo-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "dependencies.lockfile" }}
        - gradle-repo-v1-{{ .Branch }}-
        - gradle-repo-v1-
  - save_cache:
      paths:
        - ~/.gradle
      key: gradle-repo-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "dependencies.lockfile" }}

Maven (Java) and Leiningen (Clojure)

Safe to Use Partial Cache Restoration? Yes.

Maven repositories are intended to be centralized, shared, and massive. Partial caches can be restored without impacting which libraries are actually added to classpaths of generated artifacts.

Since Leiningen uses Maven under the hood, it has equivalent behavior.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        # when lock file changes, use increasingly general patterns to restore cache
        - maven-repo-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "pom.xml" }}
        - maven-repo-v1-{{ .Branch }}-
        - maven-repo-v1-
  - save_cache:
      paths:
        - ~/.m2
      key: maven-repo-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "pom.xml" }}

npm (Node)

Safe to Use Partial Cache Restoration? Yes (with NPM5+).

With NPM5+ and a lock file, you can safely use partial cache restoration.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        # when lock file changes, use increasingly general patterns to restore cache
        - node-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }}
        - node-v1-{{ .Branch }}-
        - node-v1-
  - save_cache:
      paths:
        - ~/usr/local/lib/node_modules  # location depends on npm version
      key: node-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }}

pip (Python)

Safe to Use Partial Cache Restoration? Yes (with Pipenv).

Pip can use files that are not explicitly specified in requirements.txt. Using Pipenv will include explicit versioning in a lock file.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        # when lock file changes, use increasingly general patterns to restore cache
        - pip-packages-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Pipfile.lock" }}
        - pip-packages-v1-{{ .Branch }}-
        - pip-packages-v1-
  - save_cache:
      paths:
        - ~/.local/share/virtualenvs/venv  # this path depends on where pipenv creates a virtualenv
      key: pip-packages-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "Pipfile.lock" }}

Yarn (Node)

Safe to Use Partial Cache Restoration? Yes.

Yarn has always used a lock file for exactly these reasons.

steps:
  - restore_cache:
      keys:
        # when lock file changes, use increasingly general patterns to restore cache
        - yarn-packages-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "yarn.lock" }}
        - yarn-packages-v1-{{ .Branch }}-
        - yarn-packages-v1-
  - save_cache:
      paths:
        - ~/.cache/yarn
      key: yarn-packages-v1-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "yarn.lock" }}

Limitations

The caches created via the save_cache step are stored for up to 30 days.

Caching Strategy Tradeoffs

In cases where the build tools for your language include elegant handling of dependencies, partial cache restores may be preferable to zero cache restores for performance reasons. If you get a zero cache restore, you have to reinstall all of your dependencies, which can result in reduced performance. One alternative is to get a large percentage of your dependencies from an older cache instead of starting from zero.

However, for other types of languages, partial caches carry the risk of creating code dependencies that are not aligned with your declared dependencies and do not break until you run a build without a cache. If the dependencies change infrequently, consider listing the zero cache restore key first. Then, track the costs over time. If the performance costs of zero cache restores (also referred to as a cache miss) prove to be significant over time, only then consider adding a partial cache restore key.

Listing multiple keys for restoring a cache increases the odds of a partial cache hit. However, broadening your restore_cache scope to a wider history increases the risk of confusing failures. For example, if you have dependencies for Node v6 on an upgrade branch, but your other branches are still on Node v5, a restore_cache step that searches other branches might restore incompatible dependencies.

Using a Lock File

Language dependency manager lockfiles (for example, Gemfile.lock or yarn.lock) checksums may be a useful cache key.

An alternative is to do ls -laR your-deps-dir > deps_checksum and reference it with {{ checksum "deps_checksum" }}. For example, in Python, to get a more specific cache than the checksum of your requirements.txt file you could install the dependencies within a virtualenv in the project root venv and then do ls -laR venv > python_deps_checksum.

Using Multiple Caches For Different Language

It is also possible to lower the cost of a cache miss by splitting your job across multiple caches. By specifying multiple restore_cache steps with different keys, each cache is reduced in size thereby reducing the performance impact of a cache miss. Consider splitting caches by language type (npm, pip, or bundler) if you know how each dependency manager stores its files, how it upgrades, and how it checks dependencies.

Caching Expensive Steps

Certain languages and frameworks have more expensive steps that can and should be cached. Scala and Elixir are two examples where caching the compilation steps will be especially effective. Rails developers, too, would notice a performance boost from caching frontend assets.

Do not cache everything, but do consider caching for costly steps like compilation.

See Also

Optimizations