CI/CD & DevOps / Quiz

Cache Money

Cache keys, restore-keys, and the cache-vs-artifact distinction that decides whether your pipeline is fast, stale, or both.

Difficulty
Medium
Format
Quiz
Points
150
Estimate
10 min

// MISSION BRIEF

Your Mission

A 14-minute install step is a tax on every test run, and a wrong cache key is a haunted pipeline. This quiz covers dependency caching done right in GitHub Actions, and when an artifact, not a cache, is the tool.

Scoring: timed quiz; accuracy first, speed bonus for fast clean runs.

// FIRST CONTACT

Battle teaser

A solid cache key for npm dependencies:

  1. AThe branch name alone
  2. BIncludes the OS and a hash of the lockfile, e.g. runner.os + hashFiles('**/package-lock.json'), so the cache invalidates when dependencies change
  3. CA fixed string like `deps-cache-v1` forever
  4. DThe current timestamp, for freshness
Answers, scoring, hints, and the full battle stay sealed.

// SKILL TAGS

ci-cdgithub-actionscachingartifacts