Prompt Caching
~2 min read
Concept & How It Works
- Key points are in the visual diagram above.
Why Does It Exist?
Understanding Prompt Caching helps you build reliable, scalable agent applications instead of fragile demos.
Real-World Analogy
Think of Prompt Caching as a specialized capability in your Agent Runtime & Production engineering toolkit.
Visual Workflows
What is Prompt Caching?
Example
Scenario
A production team in Agent Runtime & Production uses Prompt Caching to handle a real user request — reducing manual work and improving response quality with proper validation and logging.
Solution
In Agent Runtime & Production, apply Prompt Caching to this scenario: A production team in Agent Runtime & Production uses Prompt Caching to handle a real user request — reducing manual work and improving response quality with proper validation and logging. Identify the inputs, run the technique, validate the output, and note one thing you would monitor in production.
Practice Task
Do this before moving to the next module — reading alone is not enough.
Open the Code Walkthrough below and run it locally. Change one parameter related to Prompt Caching (e.g. model, temperature, top_k, or tool name), observe the difference in output, and write 2–3 sentences explaining what changed.
Code Walkthrough
Highlighted lines show where Prompt Caching happens in the code.
1# Prompt Caching — minimal example2from openai import OpenAI3
4client = OpenAI() # create API client5
6# Ask the model to explain this topic7response = client.chat.completions.create( # core API call for Prompt Caching8 model="gpt-4o-mini",9 messages=[10 {"role": "system", "content": "You explain prompt caching clearly."},11 {"role": "user", "content": f"What is prompt caching?"},12 ],13 temperature=0,14)15print(response.choices[0].message.content) # show output for debuggingCommands to Remember
Commands to Remember
pip install fastapi uvicorn # serve agent APIsdocker build -t agent-api . # containerize for productionkubectl apply -f deployment.yaml # deploy to Kubernetes
Common Mistakes
- Skipping evaluation for Prompt Caching before production
- No logging or tracing around prompt caching steps
- Ignoring cost and latency implications
Cheat Sheet
Quick recap — the most important points from this module.
Cheat Sheet
quick ref- •Prompt Caching
- •Agent Runtime & Production
