6 kind of caches in Laravel & how to clear them for debugging

This article has originally been written for my blog dedicated to PHP and Laravel.

To clear Laravel’s cache, use the php artisan optimize:clear command.

But if you want to understand what you’re doing, we need to talk more deeply about all the kind of caches there are in Laravel. Why they exist, and how to clear them individually. Because when problems happen, cache may get in the way of your debugging process.

Laravel’s logo.

Clear Laravel’s general cache

First, we all know the general cache in Laravel. This is where you can store all your expensive values (meaning that they take time to compute).

php artisan cache:clear

Clear Laravel’s config cache

Some config values are fetched from your environment file and it can be a bit slow. Luckily, Laravel can cache them to help us speed up our applications.

php artisan config:clear

Clear Laravel’s events cache

Laravel’s automatic event discovery is beneficial. You don’t need to register listeners manually anymore thanks to this tiny change you can make in your EventServiceProvider.

…
 
class EventServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    …
 
    public function shouldDiscoverEvents() : bool
    {
        return true;
    }
}

When going into production, you can cache auto-discovered events for maximum performance.

php artisan event:clear

Clear Laravel’s routes cache

Laravel’s routes are an essential part of your web application or API. Resolving a route can take time if you have a lot of them and as you guessed, caching helps for that.

php artisan route:clear

Clear Laravel’s scheduled tasks cache

Let’s say you have a recurring task that takes so much time to complete it will overlap with its next occurrence. You can prevent it until the previous one has finished:

$schedule->command('some:task')->withoutOverlapping();

Behind the scenes, Laravel uses the application’s cache to remember which task hasn’t finished running.

php artisan schedule:clear-cache

Clear Laravel’s views cache

Blade directives are compiled and cached even in your local environment. Sometimes though, compiled views can conflict with a recent change in your code. Again, you have a command for that:

php artisan view:clear

Clear every Laravel cache

Finally, let’s see the ultimate cache-busting command.

php artisan optimize:clear

This command will remove the following caches:

• Config
• Compiled classes cache
• Events
• General Cache
• Routes
• Views

How do I know that? Simple. I used the “Go To File” command in my code editor and searched for the “OptimizeClearCommand.php” file. Its source code is straightforward to understand, as you can see:

…
 
class OptimizeClearCommand extends Command
{
    …
 
    public function handle()
    {
        $this->components->info('Clearing cached bootstrap files.');
 
        collect([
            'events' => fn () => $this->callSilent('event:clear') == 0,
            'views' => fn () => $this->callSilent('view:clear') == 0,
            'cache' => fn () => $this->callSilent('cache:clear') == 0,
            'route' => fn () => $this->callSilent('route:clear') == 0,
            'config' => fn () => $this->callSilent('config:clear') == 0,
            'compiled' => fn () => $this->callSilent('clear-compiled') == 0,
        ])->each(fn ($task, $description) => $this->components->task($description, $task));
 
        $this->newLine();
    }
}