# Add caching headers and conditional requests to read endpoints

Read endpoints that re-send identical payloads, given validators so clients can skip the transfer.

Category: API surface and contracts
Source: https://letsship.ai/use-cases/add-caching-headers-and-conditional-requests
Published: 2026-08-25

## Goal

Add cache validators and conditional request handling to read endpoints.

## Acceptance criteria

- Responses carry a validator and an explicit cache directive
- A conditional request returns a not-modified response
- Payload savings are measured
- Private data is not marked publicly cacheable

## What lands as proof

A conditional request test plus the measured saving, so the benefit is shown rather than assumed.

## Prompt

Copy this to an agent to open the ticket:

```text
Create a Linear issue in my team and assign it to the SHIP agent.

Title: Add caching headers to {group}

Description: Add cache validators and conditional request handling to read endpoints.

Acceptance criteria:
- Responses carry a validator and an explicit cache directive
- A conditional request returns a not-modified response
- Payload savings are measured
- Private data is not marked publicly cacheable

Before you create the issue, find read endpoints in this repository serving stable data with no cache headers and replace {group} with them.
```

## Questions

### What does the agent actually change?

The ticket is scoped to one outcome: add cache validators and conditional request handling to read endpoints. Work that serves that outcome is in scope, and anything outside it is left for a separate ticket, so the pull request stays reviewable.

### How do I know the work is done?

The pull request carries the evidence, not only the diff. Here that means cache behaviour asserted, payload savings measured, so a reviewer can confirm the result without reproducing the work locally.

### How much oversight does this need?

The run stops once the plan is written. Somebody reads the approach and approves it before any code exists, which is the cheapest moment to redirect the work.