Invalidate Cached Content

POST/zones/{zone_id}/invalidate_cache

Marks cached content as stale in every Cloudflare data center and cache tier, including Cache Reserve. The content stays in cache. The next request for it makes Cloudflare revalidate it with your origin, using the ETag and Last-Modified values it was cached with:

If your origin answers 304 Not Modified, Cloudflare serves the cached copy without downloading it again, and CF-Cache-Status is REVALIDATED.
If your origin sends a full response, Cloudflare serves and caches the new content, and CF-Cache-Status is EXPIRED.

With Tiered Cache, each tier revalidates with the tier above it, so a visitor can see EXPIRED even when your origin answered 304.

Until content is revalidated, your stale-while-revalidate and stale-if-error directives still apply, counted from the time you invalidated it. For example, if your origin fails during revalidation, Cloudflare can keep serving the stale copy for the stale-if-error window.

Invalidate or purge?

Invalidate when content may not have changed, for example after a deploy. Unchanged content costs your origin a 304 instead of a full response. That saving needs an origin that sends ETag or Last-Modified and answers conditional requests. Otherwise, every revalidation downloads the full response.
Purge, with POST /zones/{zone_id}/purge_cache, when content must not be served again, for example content you removed for legal or security reasons.

Invalidating takes the same request bodies as purging, needs the same permission, and counts against the same rate limits. After a broad invalidation, such as purge_everything, expect more conditional requests to your origin while visitors request the invalidated content again.

Choose what to invalidate

Send one of these fields in the request body:

files: specific URLs. If your cache key includes request headers, send each URL with the header values it was cached with.
tags: all content whose Cache-Tag response header contains one of the tags.
hosts: all content cached for the hostnames.
prefixes: all content whose URL starts with one of the prefixes.
purge_everything: all cached content in the zone.

Check the result

A 200 response with success: true means Cloudflare accepted the request. To check, request an invalidated URL and confirm that the CF-Cache-Status response header is REVALIDATED or EXPIRED.

Availability and limits

Rate limits and the number of items you can send in one request depend on your plan. See Purge cache: availability and limits.

Security

API Token

The preferred authorization scheme for interacting with the Cloudflare API. Create a token.

Example:Authorization: Bearer Sn3lZJTBX6kkg7OdcBUAxOO963GEIyGQqnFTOFYY

API Email + API Key

The previous authorization scheme for interacting with the Cloudflare API, used in conjunction with a Global API key.

Example:X-Auth-Email: user@example.com

The previous authorization scheme for interacting with the Cloudflare API. When possible, use API tokens instead of Global API keys.

Example:X-Auth-Key: 144c9defac04969c7bfad8efaa8ea194

Path ParametersExpand Collapse

zone_id: string

maxLength32

Body ParametersJSONExpand Collapse

body: object { tags } or object { hosts } or object { prefixes } or 3 more

One of the following:

CachePurgeFlexPurgeByTags object { tags }

tags: optional array of string

Cache tags. Targets all content whose Cache-Tag response header contains at least one of these tags. See Purge cache by cache-tags.

CachePurgeFlexPurgeByHostnames object { hosts }

hosts: optional array of string

Hostnames, such as www.example.com. Targets all content cached for these hostnames. See Purge cache by hostname.

CachePurgeFlexPurgeByPrefixes object { prefixes }

prefixes: optional array of string

URL prefixes, each a hostname followed by a path, such as www.example.com/blog/. Targets all content whose URL starts with one of these prefixes. Do not include a scheme, query string, or fragment. See Purge cache by prefix.

CachePurgeEverything object { purge_everything }

purge_everything: optional boolean

Set to true to target all cached content in the zone, or in the environment for the environment endpoints. Must be the only field in the request. See Purge everything.

CachePurgeSingleFile object { files }

files: optional array of string

Full URLs, such as https://www.example.com/css/styles.css. Targets the content cached for each URL. If your cache key includes request headers, send objects with url and headers instead. See Purge by single-file.

CachePurgeSingleFileWithURLAndHeaders object { files }

files: optional array of object { headers, url }

URLs with the request headers your cache key uses. Use this form when your cache key includes request headers, or the visitor’s device type, country, or language: send the header values each URL was cached with, such as CF-Device-Type, CF-IPCountry, or Accept-Language.

When you send the Origin header, include the scheme and hostname. Include the port unless it is the default for the scheme: 80 for http, 443 for https.

See Purge by single-file.

headers: optional map[string]

Request headers and the values the content was cached with.

url: optional string

Full URL of the content.

ReturnsExpand Collapse

errors: array of ResponseInfo { code, message, documentation_url, source }

code: number

minimum1000

message: string

documentation_url: optional string

source: optional object { pointer }

pointer: optional string

messages: array of ResponseInfo { code, message, documentation_url, source }

code: number

minimum1000

message: string

documentation_url: optional string

source: optional object { pointer }

pointer: optional string

success: boolean

Indicates the API call’s success or failure.

result: optional object { id }

id: string

maxLength32

Invalidate Cached Content

curl https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/$ZONE_ID/invalidate_cache \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN" \
    -d '{
          "tags": [
            "product-1234",
            "homepage"
          ]
        }'

{
  "errors": [],
  "messages": [],
  "result": {
    "id": "023e105f4ecef8ad9ca31a8372d0c353"
  },
  "success": true
}

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": 1092,
      "message": "Request cannot contain \"purge_everything\" and any of \"files\", \"tags\", \"hosts\" or \"prefixes\""
    }
  ],
  "messages": [],
  "result": null,
  "success": false
}

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": 1134,
      "message": "Unable to purge, rate limit reached. Please wait and consider throttling your request speed"
    }
  ],
  "messages": [],
  "result": null,
  "success": false
}

Returns Examples

{
  "errors": [],
  "messages": [],
  "result": {
    "id": "023e105f4ecef8ad9ca31a8372d0c353"
  },
  "success": true
}

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": 1092,
      "message": "Request cannot contain \"purge_everything\" and any of \"files\", \"tags\", \"hosts\" or \"prefixes\""
    }
  ],
  "messages": [],
  "result": null,
  "success": false
}

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": 1134,
      "message": "Unable to purge, rate limit reached. Please wait and consider throttling your request speed"
    }
  ],
  "messages": [],
  "result": null,
  "success": false
}