What a CDN actually does
A CDN is not magic and it is not just 'caching'. Here is the mental model, the request lifecycle, the headers that control it, and the four ways teams break it.
techdecoded.dev
Every developer has a list of things they nod along to in meetings and quietly look up afterwards. This is that list, explained properly, in plain English, by someone who is not trying to sound clever.
Every article says up front what it expects you to know. If a term is unavoidable, it is defined the first time it appears, inline, rather than in a glossary you have to go find.
We start from the thing that actually trips people up, not from a definition. The mental model comes first, the terminology comes after it is useful.
Most articles end with a two-minute exercise you can run in a terminal or a browser tab. Reading about a concept and seeing it happen are different things.
A CDN is not magic and it is not just 'caching'. Here is the mental model, the request lifecycle, the headers that control it, and the four ways teams break it.
If there is a concept you have nodded along to one too many times, tell us. Requests genuinely drive what gets written.