Removing the Plugin

Why is this necessary?

API Gateway cache clusters are provisioned resources that cost real money — see the official AWS API Gateway pricing page under "API caching" for the per-region rate. They are not part of your CloudFormation stack — they're managed via the UpdateStage API at deploy time.

When you remove a caching plugin and redeploy:

1. CloudFormation doesn't know about the cache cluster → it stays running
2. No plugin hooks fire → nothing disables it
3. You get ghost billing until you manually disable it in the AWS console

The sls caching disable command solves this.

Safe Removal Procedure

Step 1: Disable the cache on AWS

sls caching disable --stage development
sls caching disable --stage production
# Repeat for each stage that has caching enabled

Step 2: Edit serverless.yml

Remove the plugin, the config, and all endpoint caching:

plugins:
-  - '@interlace/serverless-api-gateway-caching'

custom:
-  interlaceCaching:
-    enabled: true
-    clusterSize: '0.5'
-    ttlInSeconds: 300

functions:
  getUser:
    handler: src/handler.get
    events:
      - http:
          path: /users/{id}
          method: get
-          caching:
-            enabled: true
-            cacheKeyParameters:
-              - name: request.path.id

Step 3: Deploy clean

sls deploy --stage development
sls deploy --stage production

Step 4: Uninstall the package

npm uninstall @interlace/serverless-api-gateway-caching

pnpm remove @interlace/serverless-api-gateway-caching

yarn remove @interlace/serverless-api-gateway-caching

bun remove @interlace/serverless-api-gateway-caching

What about sls remove?

If you're deleting the entire stack (not just removing the plugin), the cleanup happens automatically. Our before:remove:remove hook disables the cache cluster before CloudFormation deletes the API Gateway.

sls remove --stage development  # cache is automatically disabled first

The manual disable step is only needed when removing the plugin while keeping the service running.

Already have ghost billing?

If you've already removed a caching plugin (ours or the community one) without disabling the cache:

1. Go to AWS Console → API Gateway → your API → Stages → your stage
2. Under Settings, find Cache Settings
3. Set Enable API cache to false
4. Click Save Changes

Or use the AWS CLI:

aws apigateway update-stage \
  --rest-api-id YOUR_API_ID \
  --stage-name production \
  --patch-operations op=replace,path=/cacheClusterEnabled,value=false \
  --profile interlace