▣ Nuxt Build Cache


> [!IMPORTANT]
> This is a highly experimental attempt to support build caching for Nuxt 3. Use at your own risk!

❓ What does it do?

When enabling nuxt-build-cache module, after a nuxt build, Nuxt collects build artifacts (.nuxt/) into a tar file. On subsequent builds, if non of the relevant dependencies or code changes, Nuxt will avoid the Vite/Webpack build step and simply restore the previous build results.

This is particularly useful to speed up the CI/CD process when only prerendered content or server routes are changed and can significantly speed up build speeds. (this is a similar feature we introduced in Nuxt 2).

$3

We generate a hash of the current state during the build from various sources using unjs/ohash and then use this hash to store the build artifacts. (By default in node_modules/.cache/nuxt/build/{hash}/). This way each cache is unique to the project state it was built from.

The hash is generated from all Nuxt layers (that are not in node_modules):

- Loaded config
- Files in known nuxt directories (pages/, layouts/, app.vue, ...)
- Known project root files (package.json, .nuxtrc, .npmrc, package manager lock-file, ...)

> [!NOTE]
> File hashes is based on their size and content digest (murmurHash v3)

> [!NOTE]
> Config layer hashes will be generated from the loaded value.
> If you have a config like { date: new Date() } cache will not work!

✨ Quick Setup

``sh
npx nuxi module add nuxt-build-cache
`

Environment variables

- NUXT_DISABLE_BUILD_CACHE: Disable module entirely
- NUXT_IGNORE_BUILD_CACHE`: Skip restoring cache even if exists