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#10174·skaffold

feat: Cache misses are reported with a reason

Author: peter-sanfordCreated Sep 2, 2026Updated Sep 2, 2026

When skaffold build or skaffold dev decides to rebuild an artifact, the only output is:

Checking cache...
 - app: Not found. Building

That line is the same whether:

  • a source file the artifact depends on changed,
  • a build arg or the artifact's config changed,
  • or nothing changed at all and the previously built image was simply pruned from the local daemon or evicted from the registry.

The last case is the confusing one: nothing the user did caused it, but the output is identical to a real source change. Diagnosing an unexpected rebuild today means building a patched skaffold and printing the hash inputs by hand.

Two things would help, and I have both working locally:

  1. Report the reason on the existing line. The lookup already knows whether the artifact's current hash had an entry in the cache, which separates "the inputs produced a hash we have never built" from "we built this, but the image is gone":

     - app: Not found. Building (no cached build for the current inputs)
     - api: Not found. Building (cached image is no longer available)

    No new flags, files or I/O — it is derived from state the lookup already has.

  2. Behind an opt-in flag, record the inputs that feed each artifact's hash and diff them against the previous run, so the miss names what changed:

     - app: Not found. Building (inputs changed)
         ~ src/handler.go
         + src/middleware.go
         - src/old_handler.go

Source: GoogleContainerTools/skaffold

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