this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
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Quite frankly, companies shouldn't be pulling Willy nilly from github or npm, etc anyway. It's trivial to set up something to cache repos or artifacts, etc. Plus it guards against being down when github is down, etc.
It's easy to set up a cache, but what's hard is convincing your devs to use it.
Mainly because, well, it generally works without configuring the cache in your build pipeline, as you'll almost always need some solution for accessing the internet anyways.
But there's other reasons, too. You need authentication or a VPN for accessing a cache like that. Authentications means you have to deal with credentials, which is a pain. VPN means it's likely slower than downloading directly from the internet, at least while you're working from home.
Well, and it's also just yet another moving part in your build pipeline. If that cache is ever down or broken or inaccessible from certain build infrastructure, chances are it will get removed from affected build pipelines and those devs are unlikely to come back.
Having said that, of course, GitHub is promoting caches quite heavily here. This might make it actually worth using for the individual devs.