TD Cafe #016 - Understanding Drupal Caching with Matt and Nic
Release Date: 05/08/2026
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info_outlineNic Laflin and Matt Glaman sit down to discuss Drupal caching and Matt’s new Leanpub book, Understanding Drupal: A Complete Guide to Caching Layers.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe016
Topics
- New Book on Caching
- Why Drupal Caching Shines
- Cache Tags Explained
- Cache Context Variations
- What Caching Really Is
- Invalidation Across the Stack
- NGINX Layer Pitfalls
- What Drupal Can Cache
- Writing Cacheable Render Arrays
- Debugging Metadata Issues
- Testing Caching Strategies
- Researching the Book
- Variation Cache Deep Dive
- Access Policy and Performance
- Permissions Caching and Disk IO
- Extension Discovery Tangent
- File Cache Explained
- Clearing File Cache in Tests
- Updating the Book Over Time
- Leanpub Pricing and Royalties
- Publishing Workflow and Tools
- Writing Process and Editing
Matt Glaman
Matt Glaman is an experienced software engineer and a prominent member of the Drupal community. With over a decade of experience in web development, he has developed a wealth of knowledge and expertise. He is the author of several books, including "Drupal 8 Development Cookbook" and "Drupal 10 Development Cookbook," which provide a comprehensive guide to building and customizing Drupal sites. And recently, the book Understanding Drupal: A Complete Guide to Caching Layers.
Nic Laflin
Nic Laflin is an accomplished Drupal architect and the founder of nLightened Development LLC, a web development and design firm established in 2008 that leverages highly extensible CMS frameworks to solve complex business challenges.
They’ve been working with Drupal since late 2008, delivering creative solutions for a diverse roster of clients—from government agencies and e-commerce platforms to higher-education institutions and HIPAA-compliant medical services. Recently, Nic has focused on Native Web Components for platform-agnostic design, and has deep experience integrating AWS and building mobile application back ends.
A recognized Drupal guru, Nic speaks regularly at regional Drupal camps and co-hosts the Talking Drupal podcast, where they share best practices and innovations with the community.
Outside of technology, Nic enjoys building with LEGO, experimenting in the kitchen, and designing home automation projects. You can learn more at www.nlightened.net.
Resources
Understanding Drupal: A Complete Guide to Caching Layers
https://mglaman.dev/blog/leveraging-list-cache-tag-entity-types
If you’re using a reverse proxy then disable the internal page cache
https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/3414825
Guests
Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
Matt Glaman - mglaman.dev mglaman