spring-boot-cache

Enable caching in Spring Boot by adding @EnableCaching to a configuration class and annotating service methods with @Cacheable to cache their results. Spring will store and return cached values on subsequent calls with the same arguments, reducing database queries and improving performance.

Spring Boot supports multiple cache providers including Caffeine, Redis, Ehcache, and JCache. Each provider offers different trade-offs: Caffeine for in-memory caching, Redis for distributed caching, Ehcache for persistence options, and JCache for standardized caching.

Configure eviction and time-to-live (TTL) through your chosen provider's configuration. Use @CacheEvict to manually remove cached entries, @CachePut to update cache without method skipping, and provider-specific settings to define expiration policies and eviction strategies.

Yes, Spring Cache is fully supported in Java 17 and Spring Boot 3.5+. The Skill covers proper CacheManager configuration, provider dependencies, and SpEL-based key generation for these versions, ensuring compatibility with modern Spring Boot projects.

Monitor caching with Spring Boot Actuator and Micrometer to track cache hits, misses, and evictions. Expose cache metrics endpoints and integrate with observability tools to gain visibility into cache performance and identify optimization opportunities.

Cache keys identify cached entries and determine when cached values are returned or evicted. Spring Boot uses method arguments as default keys but supports SpEL expressions to customize key generation, allowing fine-grained control over cache lookup and storage behavior.