---
title: Setting Cache-Control Headers
description: Learn how to set up Cache-Control headers for best use in our Headless Platform
url: https://developers.wpengine.com/docs/headless-platform/additional-guides/cache-control/
image: https://developers.wpengine.com/og/docs/headless-platform/additional-guides/cache-control.png
---

# Setting Cache-Control Headers

Through HTTP, `Cache-Control` gives your frontend applications instructions for caching requests and responses to your app. Optimizing Cache-Control for our Headless Platform will help with the deliverability of your content between the frontend and WordPress backends. To determine how to set up Cache-Control, see the MDN Web documentation for [Cache-Control](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Cache-Control).

## Apps Without Cache-Control

When you choose not to use Cache-Control, our Headless Platform attempts to guess how to cache content based on the [MIME type](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Basics_of_HTTP/MIME_types). Static resources, such as CSS, Javascript, JSON, images, and videos, cache usually for 10 seconds.

## Next.js Apps

Frontend applications using Next.js add immutable Cache-Control header resources, with `max-age` being when a resource remains in the cache in seconds. For example, any resources found in `/_next/static/` stay cached for `max-age=31536000,immutable`. Other static resources such as `/public/images/` stay cached for `max-age=0`.

For any custom resources you want to cache, add your custom headers outside of `/_next/static/`. For instructions, refer to the Next.js’ [headers documentation](https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/next.config.js/headers).

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