Build offline & in CI
A read served from the local cache needs no network & no credentials. That makes offline work, fast CI builds, & reproducible tests possible with one habit: warm the cache once.
Warm the cache
Run one build with NETLIFY_SITE_ID & NETLIFY_TOKEN set. Every blob the build reads is written to .netlify/blobs-cache. Builds inside the ttl window then read from disk.
The cache applies to every build: local, CI, & production alike. NODE_ENV plays no part, so a CI build with a warm cache is as fast as a local one.
Choose a ttl
| Goal | Setting |
|---|---|
| Fewer Blobs calls, fresh enough content | ttl: "1h" (the default) |
| Always the latest content | ttl: 0 |
| A frozen fixture that never expires | ttl: "*" |
Survive an outage
With staleIfError on (the default), a build that cannot reach the store serves the expired copy & flags it with meta.stale. Templates that check meta.stale can say the content is from an earlier build. See Read in templates.
Test without Netlify
The repository's sample/ is a minimal Eleventy site that reads entirely from the cache. It points cacheDir at a committed fixture & pins ttl: "*" so the fixture never expires, which needs no network access & no credentials:
yarn sample
To test code that reads blobs without a store at all, supply a getStore factory. A custom factory skips the credential check.