Crawl4AI Cache System and Migration Guide

Overview

Starting from version 0.5.0, Crawl4AI introduces a new caching system that replaces the old boolean flags with a more intuitive CacheMode enum. This change simplifies cache control and makes the behavior more predictable.

Old vs New Approach

Old Way (Deprecated)

The old system used multiple boolean flags: - bypass_cache: Skip cache entirely - disable_cache: Disable all caching - no_cache_read: Don't read from cache - no_cache_write: Don't write to cache

The new system uses a single CacheMode enum: - CacheMode.ENABLED: Normal caching (read/write) - CacheMode.DISABLED: No caching at all - CacheMode.READ_ONLY: Only read from cache - CacheMode.WRITE_ONLY: Only write to cache - CacheMode.BYPASS: Skip cache for this operation

Migration Example

Old Code (Deprecated)

import asyncio
from crawl4ai import AsyncWebCrawler

async def use_proxy():
    async with AsyncWebCrawler(verbose=True) as crawler:
        result = await crawler.arun(
            url="https://www.nbcnews.com/business",
            bypass_cache=True  # Old way
        )
        print(len(result.markdown))

async def main():
    await use_proxy()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

import asyncio
from crawl4ai import AsyncWebCrawler, CacheMode  # Import CacheMode

async def use_proxy():
    async with AsyncWebCrawler(verbose=True) as crawler:
        result = await crawler.arun(
            url="https://www.nbcnews.com/business",
            cache_mode=CacheMode.BYPASS  # New way
        )
        print(len(result.markdown))

async def main():
    await use_proxy()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Common Migration Patterns

Old Flag New Mode
bypass_cache=True cache_mode=CacheMode.BYPASS
disable_cache=True cache_mode=CacheMode.DISABLED
no_cache_read=True cache_mode=CacheMode.WRITE_ONLY
no_cache_write=True cache_mode=CacheMode.READ_ONLY

Suppressing Deprecation Warnings

If you need time to migrate, you can temporarily suppress deprecation warnings: 

# In your config.py
SHOW_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS = False