Cachelet Model Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Feature-level caching decisions for Eloquent-backed read paths. This package addresses a recurring performance workstream: reducing database load and response latency on hot, read-heavy Eloquent queries. It is a candidate answer to "do we build our own model cache layer, or adopt one?" — a build-vs-buy decision that usually surfaces once a product hits meaningful traffic or a costly N+1/query-volume problem.
• Roadmap scoping for performance/scale milestones. If the roadmap has items like "cut p95 latency on catalog/search/dashboard endpoints" or "reduce RDS load ahead of peak season," this belongs in the solution set evaluated during spike work, not as a standalone initiative.
• Use cases to evaluate against: caching frequently read, infrequently written models (settings, categories, plans, CMS content, feature-flag/config tables); caching computed/aggregated model payloads; and offloading repeated identical queries from high-traffic API endpoints.
• Buy-vs-build framing. The value proposition is avoiding custom cache-key and invalidation plumbing that teams typically hand-roll (and typically get wrong). The counterweight: an early-stage, pre-1.0 third-party dependency sitting directly on the persistence layer — the highest-blast-radius place to take risk.
• Not a decision driver on its own. Release notes for v0.1.0 contain no feature list, no benchmarks, no invalidation semantics, and no supported-version matrix. Any product decision should be gated on a technical spike producing latency/query-count numbers and an explicit invalidation-correctness review.

When to Consider This Package

Consider adoption when:

• You have a measured, quantified read-path problem on Eloquent models — not a speculative one — and caching is already the chosen strategy.
• Your team is Laravel-native, comfortable with Composer/Packagist supply-chain review, and can absorb pre-1.0 API churn (v0.1.0 signals no stability guarantees; expect breaking changes and pin exact versions).
• Cache invalidation semantics for your target models are simple and well understood (low write rate, tolerant staleness window, or clear model events to hook).
• You can verify the fundamentals the notes omit: supported Laravel/PHP versions, test coverage, the relationship to the core oxhq/cachelet package (peer dependency vs. bundled), and where issues are actually tracked.
• You treat this as a time-boxed evaluation, in a non-critical service or behind a feature flag, with a rollback path.

Look elsewhere (or build in-house) when:

• Write volume on target models is high or cache coherence is business-critical (billing, inventory, entitlements, permissions) — correctness risk outweighs the latency win.
• You need vendor accountability: this is a read-only split published from a monorepo, meaning PRs, issues, and release cadence may live outside this repository. Confirm governance and support expectations before it becomes a dependency.
• You need SLAs, security review artifacts, or a long-term support commitment — v0.1.0 will not satisfy procurement or a formal risk review.
• The problem is better solved upstream: query/index tuning, eager loading, read replicas, or a mature first-party solution (Laravel's cache primitives, Octane, response caching) may deliver most of the benefit with none of the dependency risk.
• You would be the first production user. With a single, content-free release note, you are effectively the QA function.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

To executives (one paragraph): Cachelet Model v0.1.0 is a first public release of a Laravel caching integration for Eloquent models — it targets database load and latency on read-heavy endpoints, a problem we already track. It is not recommended for production adoption today. It is pre-1.0, has no published feature documentation or performance data, and is a read-only mirror of a monorepo, so support and release cadence sit outside this repository. Recommendation: fund a small, time-boxed spike (1 engineer, ~1 week, non-critical service) to produce query-count and p95 latency numbers plus an invalidation-correctness review. Decision to adopt, defer, or build in-house follows that data — not this release.

To engineering (the honest version):

• What it is: the Eloquent model integration layer for Cachelet, split out for Composer consumption. Scope is model-level caching; verify what the core package handles versus this shim.
• Stability: 0.1.x — no semver stability guarantees. Pin exact versions; isolate behind an internal interface so we can swap it out.
• Before we integrate, answer: supported Laravel/PHP matrix; test suite and coverage; how cache keys are derived; how invalidation is triggered (model events vs. manual); behavior under cache:clear, multi-tenant scoping, transactions, and queue workers; where issues and PRs are actually filed (this repo is read-only).
• Success criteria for the spike: measurable reduction in query volume and p95 latency on one real endpoint, zero staleness bugs in a chaos/edge-case pass, and a clear "remove in a day" rollback story.
• Fallback: if invalidation semantics are unclear or the maintenance cadence is thin, standardize on Laravel's cache primitives with a documented internal pattern instead — we keep the latency win and the control.