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

New Way (Recommended)

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)

from crawl4ai import AsyncWebCrawler

async def old_code(crawler: AsyncWebCrawler):
    # Legacy `bypass_cache` / `disable_cache` / `no_cache_read` / `no_cache_write`
    # were removed in v0.5+. This example no longer applies:
    result = await crawler.arun(
        url="https://www.nbcnews.com/business",
        # cache_mode is the only cache option now.
    )
    print(len(result.markdown))

New Code (Recommended)

import asyncio
from crawl4ai import AsyncWebCrawler, CacheMode
from crawl4ai.async_configs import CrawlerRunConfig

async def use_proxy():
    # Use CacheMode in CrawlerRunConfig
    config = CrawlerRunConfig(cache_mode=CacheMode.BYPASS)  
    async with AsyncWebCrawler(verbose=True) as crawler:
        result = await crawler.arun(
            url="https://www.nbcnews.com/business",
            config=config  # Pass the configuration object
        )
        print(len(result.markdown))

async def main():
    await use_proxy()

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

Common Migration Patterns

Legacy Flag	Replacement
bypass_cache	cache_mode=CacheMode.BYPASS
disable_cache	cache_mode=CacheMode.DISABLED
no_cache_read	cache_mode=CacheMode.READ_ONLY
no_cache_write	cache_mode=CacheMode.WRITE_ONLY