Keep freshness and access decisions in the registry instead of duplicating
mutation-route knowledge in a Worker. Local Cache API deletion cannot clear
other data centers and an in-flight read can refill an invalidated entry.
Add a dependency-free metadata helper that sends stored ETags to the registry
on every eligible read, merges a 304 into the stored representation, and
never falls back to a stale body on errors. Run cache updates in the Worker
background lifecycle and avoid redundant writes after unchanged 304s. Log
optional Cache API failures without failing registry reads. Separate the stored content
coding and validator from the Cache API's own response handling. Retain
client conditional requests as direct registry requests.
Update deployment guidance to leave tarballs uncached and remove old cache
lookup paths when adopting the helper. No published package changes.
Zoltan Kochan
ba8a559853