AfroCache

A lightweight, simple Python caching library that manages data storage, on disk or in memory, and automated background updates.

Features

• Storage Engines: Supports both volatile memory caching and persistent disk caching using JSON files.
• Background Refresh: Uses QMate to execute background re-validation tasks, ensuring data is updated without blocking the main execution path.
• Execution Handling: Compatible with both def (synchronous) and async def (asynchronous) functions.
• Cache Management: Provides utilities to invalidate specific keys, reset the entire cache, and track background task queues.
• Diagnostics: Tracks cache hits, modification timestamps, and expiration times for monitoring.

Installation

Using uv:

uv add afrocache

Or via pip:

pip install afrocache

Quick Start

Basic Memory Caching

import time
import asyncio
from afrocache import init_cache, afrocache

# Initialize cache in memory mode (default)
init_cache(storage_type="memory")

# Decorate a standard synchronous function
@afrocache(ttl=60)  # Cache results for 60 seconds
def get_slow_data(user_id: int):
    time.sleep(2)  # Simulate a heavy database lookup
    return {"user_id": user_id, "status": "active"}

# Decorate an asynchronous function
@afrocache(ttl=300)
async def fetch_api_payload(endpoint: str):
    await asyncio.sleep(1)  # Simulate a slow network call
    return {"endpoint": endpoint, "data": "payload"}

2. Enabling Disk Persistence

Survive script restarts with disk storage:

from afrocache import init_cache, afrocache

init_cache(
    storage_type="disk", 
    cache_dir="./.cache_data", 
    filename="production_store.json"
)

@afrocache(ttl=3600)
def heavy_computation():
    return sum(i * i for i in range(10_000_000))

3. Scheduled Background Refresh (QMate Integration)

afrocache integrates with QMate to schedule background updates. You can pass any valid QMate scheduling arguments (such as every, at, or on) directly into the refresh dictionary.

from afrocache import init_cache, afrocache

init_cache(storage_type="memory")

# The cache entry will automatically re-fetch in the background 
# following the provided QMate scheduling parameters.
@afrocache(ttl=60, refresh={"at": ["06:00:00"], "on": ["Tuesday", "Thursday"]})
def get_dashboard_metrics():
    return {"active_users": 1250, "revenue_usd": 45000}

API Reference

Configuration

• init_cache(storage_type="file", cache_dir="./.demo_data", filename="demo_store.json"): Initializes the global cache manager configuration. Must be called once at application startup.
  • storage_type: "memory" or "disk". Defaults to "memory".
  • cache_dir: The directory path where disk files are kept. Defaults to "data". [Required if storage_type="disk"]
  • filename: The JSON database file name for disk tracking. Defaults to "afrocache_store.json".

Decorator

• @afrocache(ttl=86400, refresh={"at": ["20:00"]}, bypass=False):
  • ttl: Time-to-live for cached results in seconds. Defaults to 86400 (1 day).
  • refresh: Pass {"at": ["06:00:00"] to allow asynchronous stale-while-revalidate execution.
  • bypass: If set to True, forces the decorator to always hit the underlying function and ignore the cache entirely.

Management

• key_exists(key: str) -> bool: Checks if a specific key or function execution footprint currently resides alive inside the cache.
• invalidate_cache(key: str): Manually removes a specific key and cancels its associated background refresh tasks.
• reset_cache(): Wipes all stored data, clears background queues, and deletes the cache file if in disk mode.
• get_all_cache_keys() -> list: Returns a list of all keys currently in the cache.
• get_cache_metadata(key: str) -> dict: Retrieves basic metadata (key name and expiration timestamp) for a specific entry.
• get_cache_info -> list: Returns a detailed list of active keys, including:
  • hits: Number of times the cache was successfully accessed.
  • modified: The last time the entry was updated (formatted string).
  • expires: The calculated expiration time (formatted string).

Logging & Debugging

AfroCache uses the standard Python logging module. Enable it to monitor cache activity.

import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)

Development & Testing

If you are contributing to afrocache or running tests locally, clone the repository and leverage uv for environment management:

# Clone and enter the repo
git clone git@github.com:digitalkelvin/qmate.git
cd afrocache

# Install dependencies and sync environment
uv sync

# Run the automated test suite
uv run pytest -v

# Launch the interactive testing demo script
uv run demo/app.py

License

This project is open-source software released under the MPL-2.0 License.