Cache busting via params

Question

We want to cache bust on production deploys, but not waste a bunch of time off the bat figuring out a system for doing so. My thought was to apply a param to the end of css

Answer 1

It is safer to put the version number in the actual filename. This allows multiple versions to exist at once so you can roll out a new version and if any cached HTML pages still exist that are requesting the older version, they will get the version that works with their HTML.

Note, in one of the largest versioned deployments anywhere on the internet, jQuery uses version numbers in the actual filename and it safely allows multiple versions to co-exist without any special server-side logic (each version is just a different file).

This busts the cache once when you deploy new pages and new linked files (which is what you want) and from then on those versions can be effectively cached (which you also want).