Directory and cache clearing

While you're developing components (modules, themes, and language packages), your rapidly changing environment requires you to periodically clear certain directories and caches. Otherwise, your code runs with exceptions and won't function properly.

This topic provides guidelines on what directories to clear and when to clear them. All directories discussed in this topic are default locations. It's possible to customize these locations but doing so is beyond the scope of this topic.

When you're developing components (modules, themes, and language packages), the following directories contain temporary or generated files you can clear periodically:

Directory
Description
generated/code
Contains generated code
generated/metadata
Contains the compiled dependency injection configuration for all modules.
pub/static
Contains js and html files for each store view.
var/cache
All cacheable objects except the page cache. This directory is empty if you use a third-party cache storage such as Redis.
var/composer_home
Home directory for Setup Wizard artifacts. Do not touch this directory unless you are an experienced developer familiar with the plug-in system.
var/page_cache
Cached pages from the full page cache mechanism. This directory is empty if you use a third-party HTTP accelerator such as Varnish.
var/view_preprocessed
Contains minified templates and compiled LESS (meaning LESS, CSS, and HTML).

What directories to clear

The following table provides guidelines on what you should clear and when.

Action
Directories to clear
Change a class if there is a plugin related to it
generated/metadata, generated/code
A change that results in generated factories or proxies
generated/metadata, generated/code
A change in di.xml
generated/metadata, generated/code (also need to run the code compiler again)
Add, remove, enable, or disable modules
generated/metadata, generated/code, var/cache, var/page_cache
Add or edit a layout or theme
var/view_preprocessed, var/cache, var/page_cache
Change LESS or templates
var/view_preprocessed, var/cache, var/page_cache, pub/static
Change *.js or *.html files
pub/static
Add or edit a CMS page, cacheable block, or use the Admin to change the configuration
var/cache, var/page_cache

How to clear the directories

To only clear directories and not perform other actions, log in to the application server as the file system owner and clear directories using a command like the following:

rm -r <magento_root>/generated/*/*

You can also use the following command-line tools clear some directories for you. These commands perform other tasks as well; consult the linked documentation for more details.

Tool name
Brief description
What it clears
magento setup:upgrade
Update the database schema and data
generated/metadata and generated/code
magento setup:di:compile
Generates code
generated/code prior to compiling
magento deploy:mode:set {mode}
Switch between developer and production mode
generated/metadata, generated/code, var/view_preprocessed
magento cache:clean {type}
Clears the cache
var/cache and var/page_cache