title: How to turn off Rails caching during development
body: <p>I'm on Rails 5.2.2 and I'm building a web app that uses some static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that I'm serving from inside of the <code>public</code> directory. Much of the time when I update a file it doesn't update in my browser when I refresh, but if I go into private browsing it works -- until it caches again and then I need to open a new private window.</p>
  
  <p>How can I turn off caching for file in the <code>public</code> folder? Or if it's easier, how can I turn off all caching during development?</p>
  
  <p>This is what my <code>development.rb</code> looks like. I tried commenting out the entire <code>if Rails.root.join('tmp', 'caching-dev.txt').exist?</code> block but that didn't do anything.</p>
  
  <p>I'm also open to installing a gem to solve this if it can't be fixed with a setting.</p>
  
  <pre><code>Rails.application.configure do
    # Settings specified here will take precedence over those in config/application.rb.
  
    # In the development environment your application's code is reloaded on
    # every request. This slows down response time but is perfect for development
    # since you don't have to restart the web server when you make code changes.
    config.cache_classes = false
  
    # Do not eager load code on boot.
    config.eager_load = false
  
    # Show full error reports.
    config.consider_all_requests_local = true
  
    config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::FileUpdateChecker
  
    # Enable/disable caching. By default caching is disabled.
    # Run rails dev:cache to toggle caching.
    if Rails.root.join('tmp', 'caching-dev.txt').exist?
      config.action_controller.perform_caching = true
  
      config.cache_store = :memory_store
      config.public_file_server.headers = {
        'Cache-Control' =&gt; "public, max-age=#{2.days.to_i}"
      }
    else
      config.action_controller.perform_caching = false
  
      config.cache_store = :null_store
    end
  
    # Store uploaded files on the local file system (see config/storage.yml for options)
    config.active_storage.service = :local
  
    # Don't care if the mailer can't send.
    config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = false
  
    config.action_mailer.perform_caching = false
  
    # Print deprecation notices to the Rails logger.
    config.active_support.deprecation = :log
  
    # Raise an error on page load if there are pending migrations.
    config.active_record.migration_error = :page_load
  
    # Highlight code that triggered database queries in logs.
    config.active_record.verbose_query_logs = true
  
    # Add devide default mailer url
    config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { host: 'localhost', port: 3000 }
  
  
    # Raises error for missing translations
    # config.action_view.raise_on_missing_translations = true
  
    # Use an evented file watcher to asynchronously detect changes in source code,
    # routes, locales, etc. This feature depends on the listen gem.
    config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::EventedFileUpdateChecker
  end
  </code></pre>