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Version: 2.x

Advanced

This guide contains several tips and tricks for advanced usage of the Magento 2 integration in a Front-Commerce project.

In this section, you will learn some advanced usages of the Magento 2 integration.

Caching customers' cart​

Since version 2.19

By default, the customer cart is systematically fetched from Magento. While this ensures the freshness of the cart representation, this generates a significant load on Magento side and slows down some operations in Front-Commerce. In 2.19.0, we have added a cart cache mechanism. For now, this feature is considered as experimental and must be explicitly enabled by defining the FRONT_COMMERCE_CART_CACHE_ENABLE environment variable.

.env
FRONT_COMMERCE_CART_CACHE_ENABLE=true
caution

The cart handling is a critical feature on an eCommerce website, if you enable the cart cache we strongly advice to fully test your project before going live with it.

When the cart cache is enabled, Front-Commerce will cache the cart and as with any cache mechanism, at some point, the cache needs to be expired. Front-Commerce takes care of expiring the cart cache when an operation can have an effect on the cart representation (for instance when adding an item to the cart). If you use an API that changes the cart, you will also have to expire the cart cache. To do that, you can use decorateWithCartCacheExpire in the loader where this API is used. You can have a look at how it is used in CachedCartLoader or CartCacheAwareStoreCreditLoader where the cart cache is expired after some operations.

caution

To avoid any cache corruption, make sure to always use the CartCache instance created by the Magento2/Cart GraphQL module (see for instance the initialization of the StoreCredit loader)

Caching current customers' information​

Since version 2.19

By default, any GraphQL query fetching data under the Query.me field (Customer type) systematically leads to customer data being fetched from Magento. While this ensure the freshness of current customer's information, it has several drawbacks:

  • Magento is hit more often than needed
  • child resolvers are resolved after this initial query is received (waterfall effect)

Considering that customer's information are likely not updated without user interaction on the application, we've added a way to cache customer's information in their user session in 2.19.0. It allows to greatly improve the perceived performance of transactional user journeys, but should be adopted with care.

For now, this feature is considered as experimental and must be explicitly enabled by defining the FRONT_COMMERCE_CURRENT_CUSTOMER_CACHE_ENABLE environment variable.

.env
FRONT_COMMERCE_CURRENT_CUSTOMER_CACHE_ENABLE=true
caution

If you enable current customer's cache, we strongly advice to fully test your project before going live with it. You can use the DEBUG=front-commerce:customer:cache flag to monitor what happens in your process output.

When the current customer cache is enabled, Front-Commerce will cache customer's information in its own session. As with any cache mechanism, at some point, the cache needs to be expired.

Front-Commerce takes care of expiring these information when an operation can have an effect on the customer information (for instance when adding an address to the account). If you use an API that updates customer information, you will also have to expire the cart cache.

To do that, you can use makeCurrentCustomerCache factory to create an instance of this cache, and expire() it. You can have a look at how it is used in CustomerLoader where the customer cache is expired after some operations.

Additional headers in Magento API calls​

Since version 2.7

Front-Commerce allows you to send additional headers in all API calls. To do so, you must define the magento.api.extraHeaders (for storefront API) and/or magento.api.extraAdminHeaders (for admin API) configuration values from a configuration provider.

These additional headers could be useful if you want to add additional context to your queries, depending on the request or to detect Front-Commerce requests from your Magento server.

tip

You can refer to our Quanta module example for a working example using this feature.

Clearing Front-Commerce cache​

There are two ways to clear the magento cache:

  1. Run the below command from the command line on the magento server:

    bin/magento cache:clean -- front-commerce

  2. From the admin interface go to System > Cache Management then select Front-Commerce, make sure that refresh is selected and then click the Submit button. (see below screenshot for more details).

Clear front commerce cache