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How to Cache Claude Calls with CloudFront Without Mixing Up the Two Caches

Anthropic prompt caching can reuse eligible Claude prompt content; CloudFront caches HTTP responses. Learn where edge functions fit and how to avoid unsafe caching.
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CloudFront and Anthropic prompt caching can affect different parts of a Claude request, but they are not one shared cache. Anthropic prompt caching can reuse eligible prompt content; CloudFront can reuse an HTTP response only when its cache behavior and key make that response safe to serve again. For most Claude integrations, treat prompt caching as the relevant optimization to investigate first. Add CloudFront response caching only for responses that are genuinely reusable across requests and safely isolated.

What each cache stores

Question Anthropic prompt caching CloudFront response caching
What is reused? Eligible prompt content within a Claude API request, according to Anthropic’s cache controls. An HTTP response previously returned through a CloudFront behavior.
What determines a match? Anthropic’s prompt-cache rules and cache controls. The exact current breakpoint syntax and eligibility requirements are not established here. The behavior’s cache key, including configured headers, cookies and query strings, along with its TTL policy.
Where does it operate? At the Claude API layer, as Anthropic processes the request. At the HTTP delivery layer, when CloudFront evaluates whether it can serve a cached response.
What is the principal design risk? Assuming content is eligible or cacheable without checking Anthropic’s current implementation guidance. Serving one request’s response to another when response-relevant inputs are missing from the key or tenant isolation is inadequate.

A request can benefit from one layer without benefiting from the other. A CloudFront cache hit can avoid forwarding a request to an origin, while a CloudFront miss can still reach Claude with a prompt prefix that may qualify for Anthropic prompt caching. Neither kind of hit guarantees a hit in the other layer.

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How a Claude request moves through the layers

  1. The application constructs a request. It supplies the model and prompt content, plus any other inputs that affect the result.
  2. Anthropic processes the request. Prompt caching may reuse eligible prompt content under Anthropic’s cache controls and billing rules. It is not a stored final answer served in place of a new Claude response.
  3. CloudFront evaluates its own cache. If the request is routed through CloudFront, the applicable behavior and cache policy determine whether a cached HTTP response can be served.
  4. A miss proceeds toward an origin. Depending on the configured Lambda@Edge trigger, code can run at a particular point in that flow before a response is returned or cached.
  5. CloudFront may cache the response. Its behavior and TTL policy govern whether and for how long the HTTP response is stored.

Do not assume that putting a Claude API integration behind CloudFront makes its API responses cacheable. A Claude prompt commonly varies in the request body, while CloudFront cache policies configure key dimensions such as headers, cookies and query strings. Confirm how the selected behavior treats the request method and all response-varying inputs; do not rely on a key that fails to distinguish different prompts, models, authorization contexts or tenants.

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Where CloudFront Functions and Lambda@Edge fit

Choose an edge trigger based on when the code needs to act, not on an assumption that all edge code runs before every cache decision.

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Lambda@Edge event When it runs Practical implication
Viewer request Before CloudFront looks up the cache. Can change or route request data before cache lookup, so changes that affect response identity must align with the cache key.
Origin request Only when CloudFront forwards a request to the origin. It does not run for a response served directly from the CloudFront cache.
Origin response After the origin responds and before CloudFront caches that response. Can act on the response before caching, but does not make an unsafe cache key safe.

AWS documentation also describes CloudFront Functions as able to modify cache-key values on viewer requests. That capability is useful only if the resulting key still distinguishes every request that could produce a meaningfully different response. Edge code does not make CloudFront’s cache equivalent to Anthropic’s prompt cache.

Set up the architecture without assuming responses are interchangeable

  1. Start with Anthropic’s current prompt-caching guidance. Verify the supported model, eligible prefix requirements, breakpoint syntax and cache duration for the API and model you actually use. Those implementation details are not established here, so do not copy a guessed configuration.
  2. Decide whether a CloudFront response cache is appropriate. Use it only where identical responses can be safely reused. If each Claude response depends on dynamic prompt content, user identity or private context, shared response caching is usually the wrong default.
  3. Review the cache key against the application. Map every input that can change the response, including model, prompt or body, authorization or tenant identity, relevant query values and any other application-specific context. CloudFront’s configured key dimensions must represent response variation; if they cannot do so safely for the request, do not enable shared response caching for it.
  4. Choose the edge event deliberately. Use viewer-request when logic must run before cache lookup, origin-request when it is needed only on a cache miss that forwards to origin, and origin-response when handling the origin’s response before CloudFront caches it.
  5. Inspect the complete TTL policy and origin headers. CloudFront policies set minimum, default and maximum TTLs. AWS warns that a minimum TTL greater than zero can require CloudFront to cache for at least that duration even when the origin sends Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store or private. A positive minimum TTL can therefore defeat an origin’s apparent instruction not to cache.
  6. Validate behavior before expanding traffic. Check that distinct prompts and tenants cannot receive one another’s responses, and observe cache behavior alongside Claude API usage under representative requests.
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Understand the prompt-cache pricing figures in context

Anthropic’s pricing page, as surfaced roughly 1.1 years before this article was prepared, described a five-minute prompt-cache duration as the default and a one-hour option. The same page listed five-minute cache-write tokens at 1.25 times the base input-token price, one-hour cache-write tokens at 2 times that price, and cache-read tokens at 0.1 times that price. These are figures from that page snapshot, not guaranteed current rates; check Anthropic’s live pricing before estimating costs or deciding that caching will save money.

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Those figures concern Anthropic prompt-cache token pricing, not CloudFront’s HTTP response-cache costs. Whether prompt caching is beneficial depends on repeated eligible prefixes and current pricing; whether CloudFront response caching helps depends on safe response reuse and the actual request pattern.

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Measure both layers independently

  • Latency: Compare end-to-end response times under representative traffic; the architecture alone does not establish a speed improvement.
  • Claude API activity: Track API request volume and prompt-cache reads and writes so prompt-cache behavior is visible separately from HTTP cache behavior.
  • CloudFront behavior: Track cache hits and misses and origin requests to determine whether response caching is actually avoiding origin work.
  • Correctness and isolation: Test requests that differ by prompt, model, authorization context and tenant. Confirm that no response is shared across inputs that should produce distinct or private results.
  • Cost: Compare current prompt-cache token charges and the infrastructure costs of the chosen delivery path against measured usage, rather than treating a cache hit as proof of savings.

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