Context caching
[!NOTE] Note : This version of the page covers the new Interactions API, which is currently in Beta.
For stable production deployments, we recommend you continue to use thegenerateContentAPI. You can use the toggle on this page to switch between the versions.
In a typical AI workflow, you might pass the same input tokens over and over to a model. The Gemini API offers implicit caching to optimize performance and costs.
[!NOTE] Note: The Interactions API only supports implicit caching. Explicit caching (manually creating and managing cache objects) is not supported in the Interactions API.
Implicit caching
Implicit caching is enabled by default for all Gemini 2.5 and newer models. We automatically pass on cost savings if your request hits caches. There is nothing you need to do in order to enable this. The minimum input token count for context caching is listed in the following table for each model:
| Model | Min token limit |
|---|---|
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 4096 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 4096 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | 2048 |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | 2048 |
To increase the chance of an implicit cache hit:
- Try putting large and common contents at the beginning of your prompt
- Try to send requests with similar prefix in a short amount of time
You can see the number of tokens which were cache hits in the response object's
usage_metadata (Python) or usageMetadata (JavaScript) field.