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Cache Controls

Read this when you are tuning warm-box cache behavior, debugging a slow repeated run, or deciding whether to purge cached state on a reused lease.

A kept lease can reuse build caches across repeated runs, so the second crabbox run against the same box skips re-downloading dependencies. Crabbox exposes these caches through the cache command group and a small cache: config block.

Where caches live

Runner bootstrap prepares dependency cache roots outside the synced source tree, so the rsync of your dirty checkout never overwrites them:

/var/cache/crabbox/pnpm
/var/cache/crabbox/npm
/var/cache/crabbox/git    (created on first use)
Docker local image/layer cache (managed by Docker)

The pnpm and npm roots are created and chowned during bootstrap. The git root is reported and purged when present but is populated lazily by your commands. The docker cache is the daemon's own image/layer store, inspected via docker system df.

These caches are speed hints, not source of truth. The synced worktree stays authoritative. A disposable lease loses all cache state when its VM is deleted; only a kept lease (see lifecycle-cleanup.md) carries cache state forward.

Cache volumes

Provider-backed cache volumes persist rebuildable cache state across fresh leases. They are configured under cache.volumes, requested with --cache-volume [name=]key:path, and inspected with crabbox cache volumes. See Cache volumes for the full feature contract, provider support rules, and the boundary with images and checkpoints.

Config

Set the cache policy in any config file under cache::

cache:
  pnpm: true
  npm: true
  docker: true
  git: true
  maxGB: 80
  purgeOnRelease: false

Defaults: all four kinds enabled, maxGB: 80, purgeOnRelease: false. Each key also has an environment override:

Config key Env var
pnpm CRABBOX_CACHE_PNPM
npm CRABBOX_CACHE_NPM
docker CRABBOX_CACHE_DOCKER
git CRABBOX_CACHE_GIT
maxGB CRABBOX_CACHE_MAX_GB
purgeOnRelease CRABBOX_CACHE_PURGE_ON_RELEASE
volumes CRABBOX_CACHE_VOLUMES

The per-kind toggles drive cache stats and cache purge: a disabled kind is omitted from stats output and is skipped by --kind all. Asking to purge a disabled kind directly (for example --kind docker with docker: false) fails early. Bootstrap may still create the shared pnpm/npm directories regardless, since empty cache roots are harmless scaffolding.

maxGB and purgeOnRelease are surfaced by crabbox config show but are advisory: they are not currently enforced by the cache commands. Use cache purge to reclaim space explicitly.

Commands

All cache commands target one lease via --id <lease-id-or-slug> (also accepted as a positional argument), claim the lease for the current repo with --reclaim, and touch the lease so it does not idle out while you work.

cache stats (alias cache list)

Print per-kind cache usage for a lease.

crabbox cache stats --id swift-crab
crabbox cache list --id swift-crab --json

Flags: --id, --reclaim, --json. Output lists each enabled kind with its size and path; the docker row reports the docker system df breakdown.

cache warm

Run a cache-populating command in the lease's repo workdir, streaming output. Useful for seeding dependencies on a fresh warm box before real work.

crabbox cache warm --id swift-crab -- pnpm install --frozen-lockfile

Flags: --id, --reclaim. The command after -- runs in the synced repo directory (or the GitHub Actions workspace if the lease was hydrated via Actions hydration), with profile-allowed environment applied.

cache volumes

List configured cache volumes for the current repo:

crabbox cache volumes
crabbox cache volumes --json

This is a configuration view. Provider-specific attach/mount state is reported by the provider run output or future provider diagnostics.

cache purge

Remove cached content. Requires --force to confirm.

crabbox cache purge --id swift-crab --kind pnpm --force
crabbox cache purge --id swift-crab --force            # --kind defaults to all

Flags: --id, --kind pnpm|npm|docker|git|all (default all), --force, --reclaim. The directory caches are cleared with rm -rf; docker runs docker system prune -af.

Windows-native leases

For --target windows --windows-mode normal leases, the Linux cache roots do not apply: cache stats reports the caches as unsupported and cache purge returns an error. WSL2 Windows leases behave like Linux. See vnc-windows.md and the network/target notes in network.md for related Windows-target details.