Changelog

Purge requests now force a cache miss for Cache Reserve content, regardless of purge type. Previously, purging by cache tag, hostname, prefix, or everything marked matching Cache Reserve content for revalidation. Purging by URL already removed content from Cache Reserve and is unchanged.

This change applies to purge requests from the API and the dashboard. Cache Reserve now handles purges the same way as the edge cache.

After a purge, the next request for affected content is a Cache Reserve miss. Your origin must deliver the content in full, even if it has not changed. Cloudflare then writes the content to Cache Reserve again, which is billed as a Class A operation.

Purging by tag, hostname, prefix, or everything does not delete content from Cache Reserve right away. Matching content continues to incur storage costs until a later request replaces it or its retention period ends.

If you frequently purge Cache Reserve content by tag, hostname, prefix, or everything, review the effect on your origin egress and Cache Reserve usage.

To keep content in Cache Reserve and revalidate it instead, send the same request to the new invalidate_cache endpoint:

curl --request POST \
  "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/$ZONE_ID/invalidate_cache" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"tags":["product-images"]}'

In the dashboard, use Invalidate Cache on the Caching > Configuration page.

If your origin responds with 304 Not Modified, Cloudflare reuses the stored content instead of fetching it from your origin again. Compared with purging, invalidation reduces origin egress but not Cache Reserve operations. Updating the stored content after a 304 response is still a Class A operation. Invalidating by URL also updates the stored content when you send the request, which is a Class A operation.

Unlike the previous purge behavior, invalidation can serve stale content while it revalidates if your cache settings allow it. This applies only to copies in the edge cache, not to content served from Cache Reserve. Cloudflare can also serve invalidated content stale if your origin returns a 5xx error or cannot be reached. For details, refer to Invalidate cached content.